Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios, has said development of Team ICO's The Last Guardian is progressing, but very slowly.
"The project has been making progress, but slow progress. So that's tough, but we haven't changed any focus. It's still a really important project and a vision we want to see realised, and Fumito's vision is really causing a very difficult challenge for the developers, so there's some scrapping and rebuilding - iteration in the process. That's why [it's taking so long]," he said.
Late last year Ueda, who served as leader of and director of The Last Guardian, left Sony. However, Sony moved to calm fears surrounding the future of the project by stating that Ueda was still 'committed to completing' work on The Last Guardian.
Yoshida took the opportunity to once again ensure fans that Ueda is still closely involved with the project.
"You know, we discussed an arrangement so he could focus on the creative side. But his work and his presence on that team never changed, so it was just more a contractual rearrangement, and that was taken [by many] as 'he left', said Yoshida.
"He comes in every day, and he's probably one of the people who works the longest hours."
Following Ueda's exit US retailers mistakenly informed pre-order customers The Last Guardian had been cancelled.
Comments
23 comments so far...
StonecoldMC on 10 Feb '12 said:
fingers crossed this title sees the light of day.
Team Ico have always been a very creative studio and that is certainly something that we could be doing with a lot more!
TheLastDodo on 10 Feb '12 said:
I think the time has now come to pray, if you are interested in this game, it's time to pray for The Last Guardian.
Only a miracle of biblical proportions will get this game finished and released, if it actually exists.
rbt2 on 10 Feb '12 said:
I can see this being a PS4 release.
slick loose on 10 Feb '12 said:
A scary, yet possible premise.
El Mag on 10 Feb '12 said:
Spot on Slick....rbt being right is fecking scary!
You shlaaaag on 10 Feb '12 said:
And to further add to your comment Stone Cold, credit must also go to Sony for their commitment to what must be fast becoming a very expensive game. I imagine most publishers would have pulled the plug some time ago.
Sleepaphobic on 10 Feb '12 said:
... and isn't a mess when it comes out.
laslowoodbine on 10 Feb '12 said:
Well they have been there before with ICO, as that was originally planned for the original Playstation but slipped so much that it became a PS2 game. The benefit with that game was no-one was in great anticipation like this, add to that this game is probably the most ambitious project out there.
I think this shows why so many developers play it safe.
JBoo on 10 Feb '12 said:
As long as it comes out erm one day then i can wait for(what will be)this masterpiece
KesMonkey on 10 Feb '12 said:
Well said.
rivariad on 10 Feb '12 said:
team ico caught up to the last days of ps2, this'll be the same
spunwicked on 10 Feb '12 said:
For shame. This game is one of the three reasons I bought a PS3.
verynaughtyboy on 10 Feb '12 said:
This game was the single biggest factor in my choice between a 360 and a PS3 (although I now have a 360 too). I don't think that I have ever wanted a game so much that I knew so little about. I have been gagging for this game since I first completed SotC on the PS2!!!
Oh well, I'll just go play the HD versions of Ico and SotC... for the hundredth time!
Izo on 10 Feb '12 said:
Same here, it's taken far to long to get the game out for this gen now they're scrapping and rebuilding with the next gen about to arrive.
theideal on 10 Feb '12 said:
Sony's Shenmue?
TheLastDodo on 10 Feb '12 said:
I wonder how much of that $2bn loss Sony suffered is down to The Last Guardian..............
rbt2 on 10 Feb '12 said:
How many L's are there in bollox, Magnifico?
flash501 on 10 Feb '12 said:
I can't help but laugh every time I hear anything about this game. It'll probably still be in development in 10 years time and it's fans will probably still be awaiting it like the second coming of Christ then too!
The Last Guardian will be THE reason to own a PS6!!
Imaduck on 11 Feb '12 said:
I think we all saw this coming to be fair. It's like when someone goes underwater, there's only so long you can say "any second now!" before you realise "hmm, f**k, problemo!". We hadn't really seen anything since the reveal, a lot of the hype was based more on the studio's previous work, as we'd seen a mere scraping of stuff on TLG.
If this comes back, I hope they won't have compromised their orginal vision (eg."let's make it an FPS!"). I can only hope and assume that they did this for the best possible reason: they didn't feel that their current path would leave the product as good as they wanted it to be.
We shall see, or perhaps not
slick loose on 11 Feb '12 said:
What, you mean like Half Life?
Barca Azul on 11 Feb '12 said:
Oh dear, doesnt sound good!
Crossblade_2000 on 11 Feb '12 said:
Well... at least they're still committed to the game, so that's a positive. Having played the ICO/Shadow of the Colossus collection recently my appreciation for Team ICO has been renewed, I have no doubt The Last Guardian will amaze and delight in the same way as those previous titles. I can understand the difficulties involved in creating such an ambitious title, but, hopefully it will all come together eventually.
almanac2015 on 13 Feb '12 said:
A couple of years ago this was one of my most anticipated games. Now I just don't give a s**t. They are a fantastic developer but Shadow of the Colossus came out six years ago now. The PS3 came out six years ago.
It's just been too bloody long and whilst I appreciate developers who don't rush out their games and like to ensure quality, that can only be pushed so far. In the life cycle of a console you expect a developer to release more than one damn game and I see little reason why any game should take so long to create when you look at the development time of some other magnificent games.