While the status of Team ICO’s hotly anticipated The Last Guardian remains in limbo, director Fumito Ueda has provided some reassuring words about the game’s progress. Chatting with Kotaku, the legendary developer explained that it's “business as usual”.
The Last Guardian’s fate was plunged into doubt late last year when Ueda’s departure from Sony was announced. Since then the developer’s been working as a freelancer to complete the emotional exclusive. But contrary to speculation, Ueda doesn’t feel like much has changed behind the scenes. “The only things that have really changed are the terms of my contract,” he explained.
Unfortunately, Ueda was unable to provide any more concrete information about the development of the game. Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida revealed during E3 that the long-in-development title was experiencing technical issues. We’ve still got a feeling that it’s going to re-emerge as a PlayStation 4 release.
[source kotaku.com]
Comments 5
Hey. it's more than we're getting about Versus XIII!
It better not "re-emerge as a PlayStation 4 release."!!
Thanks for the hope Ueda. They've got a huge lot of people working on this now, on both sides of the ocean. So it better come out for my PlayStation 3. one of the reasons I bought it in the first place.
I bet Ueda is gone from Sony once this ships. Team Ico will be too. Sony will praise him and Team Ico, a little fanfare here and there, but then a hearty thanks and well wishes as they "leave to pursue new opportunities.".
@ThreadShadow With the greatest of respect to Ueda, if he does leave, I wish him luck in finding a publisher that will allow him six years to faff around with a game that probably won't sell well at all.
Obviously I'm looking forward to The Last Guardian, but, y'know, I feel like Sony has shown a great amount of faith in him by funding this project for so long.
If they really are having serious technical issues though, I'd rather they moved it to PS4. Remember what SotC was like on PS2?
Nothing about this makes me "rejoice". SNAFU might have been a better 1 word caption. FYI - situation normal, all f'd up
On Gamfaqs a poster named TheLastColossus posted: "While there have been no official announcements of it making an appearance at E3 the game will see the light of day despite fans doubts. The development was already so far along that a playable demo was meant to be available but the decision was dropped at the last minute in order to add Move support at the request of Sony (they felt it was the perfect game to showcase and add Move). The word is that Sony wanted to force Playstation Move support which was going to lengthen development time. Ueda and Sony had a fallout over this as he didn't want to be responsible for the integration. While he is no longer an SCEJ employee he is still fully involved in the same way with only his work title changed to 'freelancer'. He switched over to freelancer so this wouldn't fall on his shoulders and in the future would give him more creative freedom with his projects without interjections from Sony and forced technologies. The game will be standard (as it was meant to be played) and with move support as well. Santa Monica was brought in to polish more effects (to showcase the ps3's graphical power) while Move support is currently being developed and tweaked. Much of the game is fully completed with simply art and effects being adjusted daily aside from Move development. Its also looking like an early 2013 release date along with other AAA titles like Lara Croft and The Last of Us in order to sell more ps3's in q1 and q2 before a PS4 announcement."
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/952634-the-last-guardian/62883509
Now he doesn't post a source, but it sounds plausible.
Maybe Ueda's heart just isn't in it anymore and when he's done here, he's done with games...
I agree, it's been a very long time in dev, but sometimes great games/concepts/art/etc. take a long time. I'm willing to wait...as long as it still comes to PS3! haha. If Team Ico can push game/level design, and AI into new territories, breaking ground for future devs to learn from, it will have been worth it.
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