The Last Guardian

Team ICO founder Fumito Ueda’s feathers seem well and truly ruffled. The legendary game developer – responsible for the creation of iconic PlayStation 2 titles ICO and Shadow of the Colossus – has told EDGE magazine that he’s “terribly sorry” for the delays that have kept The Last Guardian out of fans’ hands for the past six years.

Speaking exclusively with the publication, the luminary explained that he completed his creative work on the title a while back, but when it will be released remains a mystery. “I always want to create quickly, and I always want to increase the rate of production,” he said. “In the case of The Last Guardian, my creative work was mostly finished a long time ago, but the details of when, where, and how it will be completed are beyond my control.”

As part of last week’s PlayStation 4 launch livestream, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida admitted that he had played the title – but conveniently forgot which platform he had sampled the release on. Mounting rumours suggest that the hotly anticipated adventure has switched production to the platform holder’s next generation machine.

Regardless of the device, Ueda has committed to completing the project – despite quitting his role at developer Japan Studio in late 2011. He’s now working as a freelancer on the release, a switch which he finds difficult to explain. “I felt a sense of crisis within myself about a lot of things,” he sighed. “It’s hard to [say exactly what], but in terms of my own growth and career and so on.” Fortunately, he continues to work on the title from his own home and Sony’s Shinagawa office.

The interview is disappointingly short, but we do get a sense of sadness from a lot of Ueda’s responses. He hints that Sony was not happy about his decision to quit the company, and also suggests that he has additional “secret” projects in the works. For as undeniably talented as the developer is, though, we doubt that he’s ever going to get this amount of time to complete a game again.

[source edge-online.com]