Ori and the Will of the Wisps Guide#

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a metroidvania action-adventure game developed by Moon Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios, and the second entry in the series after 2015’s Ori and the Blind Forest. This hub is built on fact-checked public sources: whatever can be verified is written up in detail, and whatever cannot is explicitly marked as not covered rather than guessed at.

Game Basics#

One positioning detail that trips people up: this is the second game in the series but a prequel on the timeline — the story takes place before Ori and the Blind Forest. It is both a sequel and a prequel; the two words describe different dimensions, so don’t get the story chronology backwards.

Production and Technical Credits#

The Core Gameplay Loop#

The loop here is textbook metroidvania: explore a new area → learn a new ability → use it to open paths that were sealed off in old areas → push on, stronger than before.

• Ability acquisition: 18 core abilities in total (upgrades not counted), learned mainly from Ancestral Trees or bought from the merchant Opher with Spirit Light.
• Combat loadout: attack abilities must be equipped into one of 3 active slots; on a controller you hold LT to open the weapon wheel and choose.
• Build planning: 31 Spirit Shards in total supply passive effects ranging from extra damage to better movement; slots are limited, and clearing Combat Shrines expands them.
• Healing: Regenerate replaces the first game’s Soul Link — you actively spend energy to heal at any time instead of managing a manual save mechanic.
• Long-term challenge: Spirit Trials add time-trial races against other players’ ghosts.

Combat and Builds#

Combat in the Will of the Wisps is loadout-driven. Your attack abilities occupy the 3 active slots, and the LT weapon wheel exists precisely so controller players can swap between them mid-fight. On top of that sit the 31 Spirit Shards: passive modifiers that let you push damage, movement, or survivability, with only a limited number equippable at once. Combat Shrines are the escalation valve — clearing them widens your slots, which is what makes extreme high-risk builds possible. Everything is bought and upgraded with Spirit Light, the game’s single currency: Opher sells and upgrades abilities directly, his first skill in Inkwater Marsh costs 400 Spirit Light at the half price offered there, and fully upgrading every Spirit Shard costs about 13,000 Spirit Light.

Getting Around Niwen#

Movement is where the metroidvania structure bites. Dash, Grapple, and Burrow are among the traversal abilities that gate progress, and the world is designed so each region has paths you can see but not reach until a later ability opens them. The walkthrough and world-map coverage in the Chinese section is organized exactly that way: by region, by the ability each gate requires, and by where the five wisps sit on the map.

What This Hub Covers#

The Chinese section behind this hub organizes its guides as follows:

• Getting started and story: a beginner’s primer on the game’s positioning, purchase info, and opening reads; a story guide covering the five wisps, Shriek’s backstory, and the full main plot; an endings page detailing the game’s single ending and clearing up common misreadings.
• Abilities and movement: an abilities guide with all 18 abilities, a per-region acquisition table, and Opher’s prices; a movement guide detailing Dash, Grapple, Burrow, and the other traversal tools.
• Combat and builds: a combat page on the weapon wheel, active slots, and damage ideas; a shard guide with the verified effects of all 31 Spirit Shards; a hardest-challenges page on high-risk shard combinations and Shrine runs.
• World and progress: a world map with each region’s ability gates and wisp locations; an ability-gated walkthrough route; a secrets page with verified extras such as Midnight Burrows and the optional Ancestral Trees; side-quest coverage including The Last Seed and its rewards.
• Reference and FAQ: collectibles by type (Spirit Shards, artifacts, and more), an achievements planning framework, a gallery of the cast plus art and tech specs, and an FAQ answering the usual questions about the prequel/sequel relationship, release dates, and system requirements.

Verified Numbers at a Glance#

Every figure in this hub comes from the public sources listed at the end, and numbers we could not verify are simply not stated. The most frequently used ones:

What We Do Not Speculate About#

The following are not covered by the public sources we checked, so this hub does not provide them — treat the game itself as the authority:

• The names and full acquisition locations of the Spirit Shards beyond those listed;
• Exact button mappings for each ability (only the LT weapon wheel and per-region availability are verified);
• Specific enemy and boss movesets, damage values, and frame data;
• Exact hidden-room locations and map-completion percentages;
• The concrete differences between difficulty options;
• Sales figures and user review scores.

Sources#

This hub was fact-checked against the following public sources (retrieved October 6, 2026): Wikipedia and Bangumi entries (production credits, release dates, platforms), PC Gamer’s abilities feature (ability regions and Opher prices), GameFAQs guides (Spirit Shard counts and effects, Ancestral Tree bonuses), Moegirl Encyclopedia and the Ori Heroes Wiki (story and endings), Bahamut GNN (Switch release date and price), the Shapes reference pages (Regenerate, Combat Shrines, Spirit Trials), Ncesc (prequel positioning, playtime, no post-launch DLC), and publisher pages (PC minimum requirements). Where a conclusion here disagrees with the game as shipped, the game wins.

Related Games#

• Hollow Knight — the benchmark metroidvania about learning abilities that reopen old paths
• Dead Cells — a combat-forward metroidvania with a comparable equip-slot build system
• Celeste — precision platforming built on tightly tuned movement tools
• Cuphead — a hand-drawn, high-difficulty action game with the same hard-but-fair spirit

Related Rankings#

Best Indie Games · Hardest Bosses

Full Guides#

In-depth sub-guides — beginner basics, story and lore, all 18 abilities, the world map, the region-by-region walkthrough, hidden content, the Kwolok and Shriek boss fights, collectibles, the combat system, achievements, the single ending, all 31 Spirit Shards, side quests, movement techniques, Spirit Trials time races, and a tips roundup — are available in Chinese on NTGame’s Ori and the Will of the Wisps section.

If you read Chinese, the shard guide there carries the full verified effects table behind the numbers above.