Talking Point: Next Month, This Gorgeous Xbox-Published Platformer Will Be Five Years Old

Some of Xbox's indie partnerships have been pretty fantastic in recent years, especially when it comes to bringing some of the space's most enticing titles to Xbox Game Pass. However, it was an actual Xbox-published series that's perhaps highlighted this best over the last decade or so - and the most-recent game in that series hits the age of five next month.

As you can possibly tell by the gorgeous artwork we've thrown up above - that series is Ori, and that almost-five-year-old entry is The Will of the Wisps, which released for Xbox One back in March 2020. Yep, in just under a month this second Ori title will have been out for five years, which is sorta crazy - we still think of this as a very recent release from Xbox Game Studios!

As we've hinted at here, we really dig this series, and the second game in particular has left a lasting impression on us here at PX HQ. At the time, we described The Will of the Wisps as "the best platformer on Xbox One" and we still think that statement holds up. In fact, we're not sure there's much else that can beat this in the Xbox Series X|S era either!

And so, we'd like to wish Ori and the Will of the Wisps an early fifth birthday, and we might just have to revisit this one around the time of the day itself. The Ori series might be on a hiatus at the moment, but the dev has said it expects to work with Xbox again in the future - and we can only hope the two teams can cook up something as good as this.

We scored Ori and the Will of the Wisps an excellent 9/10 back in 2020, but what rating would you give it? Tell us in the poll below and reminisce in the comments!