In 2009 the first trailer for The Last Guardian was revealed to the word at E3. When the trailer finished, every single gamer worldwide immediately hailed Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian as possibly the greatest game trilogy ever made. (I'll assume that you are reading this due to an interest in the subject matter, so I won't badger on about what the game is. A boy, a cat/dog/bird thing called Trico and a castle. It's like Ico meets Shadow of the Colossus. Sounds marvellous. Let's move on.) However, as of autumn 2013 The Last Guardian hasn't been released yet. Still. Despite an expected 2011 release. So what is going on? Why is one of the most anticipated games of all time running late? Very late. (Too late?) As time has gone on the game's release has seemed less and less likely. Ueda-san, the man behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, left Sony Japan back in 2011 as a result of 'creative differences' though he has still apparently remained working on the title on a freelance basis. We've have tidbits of information over the last three years to keep us going, hoping. But still nothing. So where does that leave us? In order to find a logical answer to the question, it appears that the past holds the clues to the future. So let's go back to 2003. Shadow of the Colossus is released on PlayStation 2 to a grand aplomb. It is quite simply stunning. Graphically it beats everything available at the time on Xbox 360. It feels far FAR too technical to be a 'last gen' title. Somehow Ueda and Sony Japan have done it again. It turns out Ico wasn't a fluke. Team Ico are heralded as brilliant and Ueda a visionary. The world waits eagerly for the next title from this simply astonishing team.
In the years that have followed, much has been made of just how on earth Shadow of the Colossus even came to be. In an interview with Ueda-san. It was revealed that SotC was deemed technically impossible to do with the technology at the time. Yet somehow they found a way. This seems to be the case with the PS3 and The Last Guardian. I certainly watched the first trailer for The Last Guardian with awe and astonishment. That it was being billed as a PS3 'game' - and not a film - was beyond me. I wondered how on earth an interactive CGI character could be done. No game had ever even tried it. So, is it the case, as we all suspected in 2009, that the PlayStation 3 simply can't handle the ambition behind the title. We are talking about a game that features a constant, essentially CGI character that's interactive to the player. When Ueda-san cited 'creative differences' as his reason for leaving Sony Japan, could it be that in fact the 'difference' was that the rest of the team or people above him were adamant that it couldn't be done in the way that he specifically wanted - and so were actually trying to dumb down the technical aspects against his wishes? Going from that, we now know that Mark Cerny was chosen as lead system architect for the Playstation 4. The design of the PS4 system began in 2008. One of the reasons why he was given the opportunity was that he speaks fluent Japanese. Bare in mind that Team Ico is a part of Sony's Japan Studio. Could Ueda have agreed to come back on a freelance basis once it was suggested that The Last Guardian could be made - exactly as he wanted it to be - but not on Sony's current flagship system. Could there have been a discussion between Ueda and Cerny himself? Of course that's speculation, but it's certainly possible.
Flash forward to the Tokyo Game Show 2013. Rumours began swirling that The Last Guardian was to be pre-announced as a PlayStation 4 title during Sony's keynote presentation. This never happened. A short while after TGS however, Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony's Worldwide Studios, was asked about The Last Guardian in an interview, he gave the following response: " So, we're waiting for the right time to re-introduce The Last Guardian in an appropriate way. I can't... Well, the game is in development, and it's well staffed, and Ueda-san is here, working - even though he's not a Sony employee, he's dedicated to the product. But we're not ready to update yet." "...The game has never stopped - the team has always been here. They're going through the re-engineering of the game, so the team size is smaller, because it's more engineering focused right now." 'Engineering focused' - the two most important words seem to come right at the end. The interviewer even states that he overheard the team (who are based in the same building as the interview was conducted in) discussing the PlayStation 4 development kits they had in their office. (You can see where this is going now, can't you.) I don't know about you, but 're-engineering' and 'engineering focused' to me suggests that this smaller team are working on adjusting a practically finished game. (Maybe graphics, controls, etc.) It almost slaps you in the face really. It's so glaringly obvious that you just want someone in a position of authority/knowledge to just come right out and say it. The Last Guardian is now a PlayStation 4 title.
It makes sense not to announce it just yet. The game was announced for PlayStation 3 long before it ought to have been. So it stands to reason that it should be 're-introduced' when there is absolutely no doubt that it can be finished and put on shelves in less than two years. So here's a bold prediction, the original announcement of The Last Guardian came at E3 2009 - The Last Guardian, as a PlayStation 4 title will be revealed to the world during Sony's conference at E3 2014. A full five years later. We'll see if I'm right in June. If you've got this far thanks for reading. Do you agree? Or do you think that The Last Guardian is a PS3 swansong title? Feel free to sound off in the comments below.