Moon Studios

Moon Studios GmbH is an Austrian video game developer founded in 2010. They are best known for their 2015 title Ori and the Blind Forest, for which the studio was awarded the Best Debut award at the 2016 Game Developers Choice Awards. In 2020, the studio released a sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps.

History
The studio was founded in 2010 by Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol. During Mahler's tenure at Blizzard Entertainment, the successes of independent games like Castle Crashers, Limbo, and Braid encouraged him to leave the company to found an independent studio. The two chose the name "Moon Studios" as the company name as they were inspired by John F. Kennedy's quote, "We choose to go to the Moon". Mahler described Moon Studios as a "virtual studio," as the team did not rent an office and instead recruited talents from all over the world. Team members came from places such as Austria, Australia, Israel and the United States, and they collaborated with each other using the Internet. The company's headquarters are located in Mahler's native Vienna.

After assembling the team, Moon Studios started creating prototypes. One early prototype was named Warsoup, a first-person shooter mixed with real-time strategy elements. Another prototype was named Sein, a platformer with Metroidvania gameplay. Moon Studios started pitching Warsoup to publishers. Microsoft dismissed Warsoup but agreed to fund Sein, with Microsoft retaining the rights to the intellectual property. With a core team of 10 people alongside several remote working contractors, the game, which would later be renamed Ori and the Blind Forest, took the team 4 years to develop.

The team met with each other for the first time at E3 2014, when the announcement trailer was released. Ori and the Blind Forest received critical acclaim when it was released in March 2015. It was also a commercial success, as it recouped its development in 7 days.

Following the success of Ori and the Blind Forest, the team expanded significantly. As of March 2020, the studio employed more than 80 people and recruited talents from 43 countries. To facilitate communication, Moon built its communication tool named "Apollo". The team also organized yearly retreats to ensure the team bond together. At E3 2017, they announced a sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which was released for the Xbox One and Windows 10 on March 10, 2020.

The company is now working on an action role-playing game No Rest for the Wicked, which is set to be published by Private Division. It is set to be released via early access for Windows PC on April 18, 2024. Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S were also in development.

Allegations of workplace abuse
In March 2022, VentureBeat published an article that detailed allegations of workplace abuse at Moon Studios with a particular focus on Mahler and Korol. These included claims of regular arguments during development, claims of a oppressive crunch culture at the studio and claims of racist, sexist, and anti-semitic language being used by Mahler and Korol during work hours.

In a response to the report, Mahler and Korol claimed the details of the report were not representative of the working environment of the studio, nor its employees, touted the studio's multiculturalism, but also acknowledge that they have teased their cultural backgrounds. In addition, they expressed regret if anyone on staff felt uncomfortable or let down by their actions.