Up until recently, news regarding Team ICO’s The Last Guardian was harder to come by than a sealed, unopened NON-Greatest Hits copy of Final Fantasy 7. We reported about the domain for the game being registered, the Official Japanese site going live, and now Creator Fumito Ueda has some fresh details about his Team’s latest Masterpiece in the making.
In an interview with the World famous Japanese game magazine, Famitsu, Fumito Ueda chimed in to explain to everyone what was going on with the title. So why haven’t we heard much about it since it was revealed?
I concentrated mostly on game development in 2009, so I don’t have much of an impression on which way the industry went last year. There were titles I was looking forward to as a gamer, of course, but I don’t think there was anything that really surpassed my expectations. That may just be me getting old, though.
Nothing wrong with that, right? I’d rather have a game developer worry more about his game then running his mouth all the time to the press. He continued:
I really appreciate the great response [The Last Guardian] has received overseas, but I admit that I’m trying not to listen to too much outside commentary right now. I want to avoid putting more pressure on myself than I need. With this project, especially, our studio’s getting a lot more fan support than we had with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, which in turn adds to the pressure. Lately, as a result, I’ve just been trying to keep my head in my work instead.
It seems that development is going rather nicely for the game, as Fumito and Team ICO are currently working mainly on the animations of the boy and the creature.
The presence and lifelike-ness of the creature is the most important aspect of the game, so that’s what we’re devoting ourselves to right now. Wrangling such a huge creature in HD resolution is harder than anything we’ve done before, but we’re gradually getting it where we want to be. I’d also like people to pay attention to the player character and how he moves, too. His animation is extremely deep and fits in with the physics engine in ways we haven’t done before.
When asked when we’ll see more of the game, Ueda said it might be a while:
I can’t say much now, but I’d like to get more info out during the year. We have yet to decide whether that’ll be at E3 or during the Tokyo Game Show, however.
And finally, he commented on when we might be able to add the game to our collection–ya know…a release date!
We’re pinning one down at the moment. Once we decide upon one, I think it’ll get into stores pretty quickly.
I think we can all agree that anytime in 2010 would be excellent for PlayStation 3 owners around the world. If we hear even a hint about a potential release date or any other information about The Last Guardian, we will let you know.
