E3 2015: The Last Guardian Explores the Relationship Between People and Animals

Love it or loathe it, games like The Last Guardian just don't get made. This a blockbuster title in every sense of word, and it clearly has a colossal [Pun intended – Ed] budget behind it. So, in a year where Ubisoft's big reveal was a Ghost Recon reboot that looked almost identical to its still-in-development The Division, it's refreshing to learn about a release that's been inspired by the, er, relationship between people and animals.

"When I was formulating the concept of The Last Guardian, one of the things I looked at was the relationship between people and animals, and I thought this was something that I wanted to build a game around," tortured creator Fumito Ueda told the PlayStation Blog. "Most people really relate to animals – they find them cute and easy to bond with – so that relationship was the primary focus. The reason I chose this core theme is that I wanted to appeal to as many people as possible."

The talented people at Team ICO have totally nailed the relationship, too; there are so many little touches in the gameplay demo that are easy to overlook, such as the way that Trico – the bird thing – watches the boy from afar, and paces up and down tracking his movement. The highlight for us, though, is that it's something totally different; we love shooters as much as the next gamer, but the overemphasis on a handful of genres can get a bit much at times.