The Last Guardian IS in production. Although the game was absent from this year’s E3, that’s what we’ve been repeatedly assured of by Sony reps. Well, front man Fumito Ueda, creator of PS2 classics ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, stepped out from behind the curtain to reiterate that fact, but with a little caveat.
In an interview with Weekly Famitsu on the recent addition of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus to the monthly Japanese PlayStation Plus free to play list, Ueda spoke of his mixed feelings on seeing his games made available for free — although, people pay for the PlayStation Plus service, so technically, it isn’t free. While Ueda was happy that the games he worked on could reach a wider audience, he expressed that he had made the game with the intent that they would be the sort of games people would be willing to pay for to play — again, the service itself in not free.
Of course, no interview with Ueda can be complete without addressing the elephant in the room. When asked about how development on The Last Guardian was progressing, Ueda, who has continued working on the game as a freelance developer since his departure from Sony Computer Entertainment in 2011, answered that the game IS in active development. “However,” he added, “[SCE] Japan Studio, which is developing The Last Guardian, is working on many games, like Puppeteer and Knack, to name just the publicly announced ones, and those games are of higher priority right now.”
Other development studios have been brought in to help on the game, so while it may not be top priority for SCE Japan Studio, it might be top billing for others involved. On the other hand, SCE Santa Monica which was reported as a participant has all but outright denied any involvement with development of The Last Guardian. Said Tim Moss of SCE Santa Monica in an article by Eurogamer, “The only way you can say that is the knowledge that we contribute back to the central tech groups benefits The Last Guardian. So I’m guessing someone was slightly misquoted.”
Puppeteer is scheduled for a September release and Knack will be a PS4 launch title in November. The Last Guardian will be coming out after that, apparently. Much after that, probably.
Still waiting…
ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com]
Santa Monica Studios clarifies its involvement with The Last Guardian [Eurogamer]
Comments
14 responses to “The Last Guardian Is Not As High A Priority As Other Games”
I’m sorry guys but it’s never going to come out. I think it’s time to move on, I really don’t foresee a FFXV-esque rebirth for this. Of course I’d love to be wrong though
You shut your mouth!
Or I’ll shut it for you! *shakes fist*
ok knack is a launch title, fair enough, gotta get it finished in time for launch. But how is puppeteer a higher priority than the last guardian? Dont get me wrong, puppeteer looks awesome and I’m probably getting it day 1, but c’mon!
Atleast Rime and Rain will fill the void for a little while atleast.
Boooooooooooooooo
Somebody needs to sort out their priorities.
Sounds like he wasn’t happy that Iso and Collossus were made part of PS+.
Does anyone know what sort of compensation developers and publishers get when their game is made “free”-ish on PS+?
Apparently it’s a case by case basis. Sometimes there’s a financial agreement, other-times it’s just made free out of the hope it will make people curious about other paid titles by the publisher.
It’s been 7 long, frustrating and disappointing years of waiting and you can safely bet it’ll be a few more years until it (if ever) gets released… unless 7 years into the PS4’s life they’ll scrap it and develop it for the PS5. :p
Anyway I assume we won’t see anything from Team ICO at this year’s TGS like in previous years. 🙁
Hopefully it becomes a PS4 release instead…. here’s hoping.
I played Shadow of the Colossus for the first time last year as the HD re-release on the PSN store. Man, if that wasn’t one of the best games I played… The atmosphere was just something completely different to everything around now. So incredible.
Yeah, it’s a little dated but still holds up very well.
Didn’t anyone tell him they were free on the EU PS+ list a few months back as well? The way I see it, if people play them and like them enough to want The Last Guardian to come out, it only serves to improve the chances of it becoming a higher priority.
I would guess that rather than continue to try and make their ambition fit the PS3 hardware – it has been delayed trying to get it to work on the machines specs, that they would go PS4 on make it look and play how they want.
That would mean more than converting to new hardware though. They would have to go back and add in the compromises they made on the game and re-balance it.