Team Ico’s games have continually focused on the ideas of eliciting such strong responses from gamers and its swansong title The Last Guardian is no exception in this regard. Released in 2016, The Last Guardian was perhaps the most polarizing game released that year with some fans calling it one of the best games of all time while others criticized its controls, AI, and performance issues. More than 5 years later, many have come around to appreciating its better aspects and the bold strides it took in its game design. To that effect, the time seems ripe to ask – what made The Last Guardian one hell of a game?

The Last Guardian is perhaps most well known for its extremely protracted development cycle. First unveiled as Project Trico back in 2009, The Last Guardian was initially supposed to release in 2011. However, the game went dark after the announcement as the development shifted to Sony’s next console, the PS4. Game director Fumito Ueda also left Team Ico to start his own studio GenDesign, which was then given the responsibilities for developing the game. A long period of almost 4 years passed without any news of the game. Just when most fans had completely given up hopes of playing The Last Guardian, the game resurfaced again at E3 2015 with a final release window of 2016.

The Last Guardian sees players taking control of an unnamed boy who wakes up to see himself in an old fort of sorts. Upon waking up, he sees the towering behemoth of a creature by the name of Trico in shackles as he cries in pain from all the spears pierced into his furry body. You help Trico get back up on his own four feet by providing him treatment and he starts to become friendly towards you. The game primarily revolved around players having to solve puzzles and overcome a slew of obstacles as a team to somehow get off this high-walled fort. The story isn’t the most complex, which isn’t too surprising considering that Fumito Ueda is at the helm. It intentionally leaves gaps in this very vague plot and expects players to fill those gaps with one’s own interpretation of it all.

Much like Team Ico’s previous works, companionship is the central theme of the narrative. Over the course of the game, players are expected to organically form a deep connection with the beast. Ueda masterfully uses game design techniques to establish this emotional connection without the use of expository dialogues or extensive backstories. Trico cannot survive without the nimble nature and the intelligence of the boy and the boy cannot hope to escape this gargantuan facility without the sheer strength of the creature.

Puzzles are built on this very foundation, and simply getting from point A to point B is just half the battle won. Oftentimes, you will be required to open up doors or push those pesky water paintings of an eye to help Trico get to you. On the contrary, however, you cannot hope to survive enemy encounters with the stone soldiers without Trico’s strength – and as such, you might need to lure enemies to where the beast can take care of them. Other times, you might need to just hitch a ride on the back of Trico to get through certain sections, or you might need to command Trico to stand up near a wall to get to where you need to go.

The game expertly balances the nature of these puzzles to give both characters ample amounts of time in the spotlight. However, controlling Trico is easier said than done. Unlike most video game companions, Trico is controlled by an entirely self-governed AI meaning it has a mind of its own. Thus, you can give Trico commands – but it is entirely up to his virtual brain cells if he listens to you or not. This is perhaps the biggest point of contention regarding the game, as it’s entirely possible that he just doesn’t pay attention to your commands which can be very frustrating at times.

That said, this is also one of the biggest reasons why players start to get more and more attached to this beast as they overcome increasingly tough obstacles together without any firm method of communication. A game is defined by its rules, but The Last Guardian can break those rules at certain moments to illustrate the deep connection that Trico and the boy share with each other. For instance, Trico might forgo his phobia of glass paintings if he sees you being dragged to another realm by the enemies and instantly save you. It doesn’t happen all that too often, but this is part of why it makes those moments so special.

Of course, this being a Fumito Ueda game – his design by subtraction philosophy is in full swing here too. As already mentioned, every aspect of the game serves to strengthen one core design goal that is to explore the relationship of the boy and his gargantuan pet animal, and elements that don’t serve those goals were butchered throughout development. You will not get any special tools throughout your journey so to speak, there is no side content except for optional treats for Trico, no skill trees, and so on. Most of your time spent exploring the vast environments will be coupled with just the ambient sounds of the flowing winds, rustling leaves, and complete silence. It is only in high-intensity or emotionally evocative moments that the game pulls out its fabulous orchestral soundtrack.

The art style is also minimalist in a similar vein, with the entirety of the world seemingly being drawn by watercolors. There’s heavy use of volumetric fog everywhere, which gives a grand sense of scale to these environments. Generous use of bloom also helps in giving the game a pretty vibrant look, which goes very well with the game’s art style too. It all coalesces to give The Last Guardian a pretty distinctive feeling of being lonely in a vast environment, which works very well with the themes it tries to explore.

Of course, The Last Guardian isn’t a perfect game by any means. There are some very obvious flaws with the game. Movement never feels quite right, which can make some late-game challenges an exercise in pain. The controller layout is also different from what most players might be used to. Some textures can stick out on account of their low-resolution, which is a direct result of the game’s turbulent generation-spanning development cycle.

However, in the face of what The Last Guardian does right, these all become minor nuisances by the time you roll the end credits. The Last Guardian is simply put one of the most unique video game experiences of recent memory, and a strong reminder of the fact that video games can also be works of art. What gives it such stature and in turn, makes it one hell of a game are the bold strides it takes to accomplish its design goals, knowing well that they might not jive very well with a decent chunk of its audience. 

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Miyazaki says that the game was a moving experience for him, which ultimately motivated him to leave his job at the company he was working for at the time and begin working for FromSoftware. The Famitsu article also includes similar tributes from other renowned developers of the industry such as Yoko Taro, Masahiro Shakurai, and a few others. 

“On a personal note, after graduating from university and starting a new job, I was away from games for a while when I happened to play Ico at a friend’s house on a recommendation,” Miyazaki said (as translated by VGC).

“It was a beautiful, untold experience and story that I had never imagined, and I’m very sorry to my friend, but I was quietly moved and silent. And that’s when I left the company I was working for at the time and started working for FromSoftware. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the game that changed my life, and I’m proud that it was Ico and it was Mr. Ueda’s game. Congratulations on the 20th anniversary of Ico, Mr Ueda. As a fan, I’m looking forward to your new games. The mythology that runs through your games, including Ico, has always been a goal of mine.”

Legendary game director Fumitu Ueda – who directed Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian – is most famous for his design-by-subtraction philosophy, which entails ruthlessly chopping any and all elements of a game that don’t resonate with its core goal. When Ico was in development at the now-defunct SIE Japan Studio, the game had a more complex combat system, dedicated progression mechanics, and other things that were cut out in favor of making a tight game.

PlayStation Plus subscribers will be receiving Shadow of the Colossus, developed by Team ICO and remade by Bluepoint Games, along with Sega’s Sonic Forces as their free games for March. These titles will be available with the next PlayStation Store refresh, which should be on Tuesday, March 3rd. If you haven’t claimed February’s free offerings, now’s a good time.

Shadow of the Colossus originally released in 2005 for the PS2 but this remake arrived in 2018 for the PS4. It sees Wander roaming the lands, defeating massive beasts known as the Colossi, to save his love Mono. The game was acclaimed for its boss design, atmosphere and visuals.

Sega’s Sonic Forces is suitably less acclaimed but features a mix of 2D and 3D Sonic gameplay a la Sonic Generations. It also features the ability to make an avatar and partake in different stages with it. Though it doesn’t have the best level design or performance, it’s still worth experiencing as a Sonic fan for the presentation and gonzo story.

PlayStation Plus members will also get access to the Predator: Hunting Grounds trial next month. Head here for more details.

Fumito Ueda, the man behind classics such as Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian, has formed his own studio since he moved on from Sony. GenDesign, led by the mastermind designer, is working on its next title, which is being funded by a game fund called Kowloon Nights, and Ueda has spoken in recent weeks about how the game is going to be just as ambitious as his previous games.

And according to Ueda, bringing those ambitions to life is going to be a much easier and smoother process now, thanks to current technologies, than it would have been years ago. While speaking with Edge (November 2018, Issue 324), Ueda talked about his work on his upcoming project. He mentioned that the way he and his team are going about developing the game would not have been possible on titles such as Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, due to limited technologies.

“In the past, it would take a week or two for an idea in my head to be realized in the game,” Ueda said. “However, now that we have modern tools at our disposal, we can fully realize a new idea in a matter of days or hours. The way we’re building our next game just wasn’t conceivable years ago when we developed The Last Guardian and Shadow of the Colossus.”

Hopefully, that means Ueda and his team will take less time to churn out their new project than they did with The Last Guardian, which had an infamously protracted development cycle. That’s what more efficient tools are supposed to do, at the very least.

One of the techniques that developers often use on the PS4 Pro, and even the Xbox One X, to achieve image output in 4K, is checkerboarding, which is a special form of upscaling that delivers visually pretty great image quality.

However, according to Bluepoint, the remastering and remake folks, who recently released a full fledged remake of Shadow of the Colossus on PS4, there is a better way to achieve much better IQ on PS4 Pro than that. Speaking with Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry, Bluepoint’s President and Co-Owner Marco Thrush discussed the technique of using a native 1440p image, and then injecting it into a 4K buffer using temporal injection.

“We’re doing exactly what Ratchet and Clank is doing, which is actually rendering a native 1440p frame and injecting it temporarily into a 4K buffer, so the actual final output that we’re sending to the hardware with the UI and stuff is 4K and really just calling it 1440p is kind of lying a little bit, because over time the temporal jittering of the rendering will give you a higher-quality result than a single 1440p frame,” he said.

“In addition to the temporal jittering at the injection into the 4K buffer, we also have standard temporal AA. So that’s what we’re using, but yeah, we’re not doing anything like checkerboard rendering, we’re just doing the native approach, which simplifies things a lot actually.”

Of course, for a game like Shadow of the Colossus, maybe this approach works- after all, the game relies on minimalism, and doesn’t have as much going on as, say, Battlefield would. Still, it’s definitely an alternate approach available to developers if they want to leverage what the PS4 Pro has to offer.

Valus

Valus is the very first Colossus you meet so as expected, even with his massive size, he’s not difficult to put down. Stab his calf and when he stops, climb up his body to attack his vitals. More than anything, Valus sets the tone for the mix of platforming and action that awaits.

Say what you will about one of Sony’s biggest PS4 exclusives in 2018 being a remake but Shadow of the Colossus is finally here and it’s really darn good. Sony Interactive Entertainment have released a new trailer for the game’s launch.

Remade by Bluepoint Games with help from SIE Japan Studio, Shadow of the Colossus is about Wander and his love Mono who is more or less dead. Wander can resurrect her if he follows the advice of the shadowy Dormin and slays 16 different Colossi residing in the forbidden land. From here, the player begins a quest to take down each Colossus with only his sword, a bow and arrow and trusty steed Agro.

Shadow of the Colossus first released in 2005 for PS2 and was lauded for its excellent gameplay and narrative. The remake maintains both of those aspects while significantly upping the visual fidelity in terms of texture quality, draw distance and resolution. There’s even a new control scheme for veterans to tinker around with.

If you never played Shadow of the Colossus back in 2005, then you may be confused about the remake and all the critical acclaim it’s receiving. The recent PS4 title, remade by Bluepoint Games from the ground up, focuses on Wander as he journeys across the land slaying the massive Colossi. To learn more about this, a new trailer has been released, detailing the story within and the tone that can be expected.

The PS4 remake of Shadow of the Colossus is more or less the same as its 2005 iteration, save for the vastly improved visuals. You still have to travel the lands, locating different Colossi, find a way to scale their massive bodies and destroy their vital points to ultimately bring them down. There are 16 Colossi in total with no other enemies.

Releasing on February 6th, you can see what we thought of the game in our review here. Suffice to say, even if you know nothing about the original, Shadow of the Colossus is worth experiencing on the PS4.

Team ICO may have made its mark in the industry with ICO but its most memorable work till date has arguably been Shadow of the Colossus. However, having released in the PS2 era, it was subject to the limits of technology at the time. Bluepoint Games’ upcoming Shadow of the Colossus remake for PS4 will be undoing many of those limits but how does that change the experience for fans?

In a new video, the developer talked about remastering the game and how it wanted to preserve the way the game felt. Producer Randall Lowe noted on the PlayStation Blog US that there were some things that wouldn’t be changed. “For instance, Wander standing still to fire a bow. Everything about Shadow is very deliberate. The way Wander moves throughout the world is heavy. It’s not light and fast and arcadey. He carries the burden of his actions in how he moves.”

When it comes to fixing bugs and making improvements, there are some unintended changes that an take place. Studio president Marco Thrush talked about how increasing the frame rate on the PS3 version resulted in the third Colossi becoming a tougher fight. That ultimately benefited the PS4 remake though. “So, now we’ve had the chance to fix those kinds of things that slipped through initially. It gave us a second chance.”

The developer goes on to discuss some of the graphical improvements to aspects like fur, which the player must grasp on to when climbing the Colossi. “We spent a lot of time on the fur tech, trying to make the fur lay and clump just right, getting the shading right and making sure it moves right when you’re climbing through it.”

Shadow of the Colossus is out on February 6th for PlayStation 4.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

During E3 2017, Sony revealed through trailer during their expo that Shadow of the Colossus would be receiving a full remake on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. Details would trickle out over the next several months about the exact nature of the remake and what the team at Bluepoint were doing to make it special. Bluepoint previously worked on the PlayStation 3 remaster of the game.

In order to make the game run on the PlayStation 4 and to leverage the PlayStation 4 Pro’s potential, Bluehole recreated all of the games assets and animations with modern standards and 4K in mind. New physics systems were applies to things like Wander’s clothing and his horse’s hair. In addition, an optional new control scheme is being introduced. While players can choose to enjoy the remake with the original control scheme, Bluepoint wanted to offer a way to play more in line with modern sensibilities and tastes.

Dedicated to preserving the feel of the original game, Bluepoint Games would undergo a delicate balancing act between what to keep that made the experience what it was and how they were going to modernize the game for a 2018 audience. Technical Director Peter Dalton said to Game Informer that underneath the rendering and animation systems that make the game look as stunning as it does, the original game, down to the very code, is at the heart of things.

The original designer of the game, Fumito Ueda, though has moved on from Team ICO, did offer a handful of undisclosed suggestions to the team for the update, but would state that he did not believe many would be implemented. Ueda would also go onto say that he considered the game complete with the 16 bosses it had when originally shipped and that the many beta colossi would likely be left on the cutting room floor.

Story

The tale of Wanderer seeking out the Colossi in the hopes of reviving his lost love will remain unchanged from the previous versions of the game, as Bluepoint have no intention of altering that story. As such, you can expect the tragic tale of Wander to play out with 16 bosses and none of the hidden items or cut areas which were planned for the original game.

The discussion only comes up because when the original title was in development, the developers had intended to include 24 Colossi, down from 48 they had created in pre-production. The fanbase for the game being as ravenous as it is, there were some hopes that the remake could have added the leftover content. The fans have uncovered a lot of hidden data for what could have been, but that’s for another day.

Gameplay

As this is a remake of the established PS2 original, the central gameplay loop will remain very much intact. The game plays out in cycles where Wanderer will set out across the desolate landscape of the game, seeking to destroy the Colossi in order to revive his dead love.

There isn’t much combat outside of the Colossus encounters, which play out more like a puzzle where you need to figure out how to surmount these impossibly large beasts. As he journeys, Wanderer will innately become better at actions such as grip, and find a few items along the way that can help.

Exploration is the primary interaction with the world of the game, as Wanderer needs to find each colossus before he can take it down, and will come across many grand structures and puzzles along the way. At any time, his Sword will help point him in the right direction. However, it’s up to Wanderer, and thus the player to figure out exactly how to get to where they’re going.

The remake will introduce a more modern control scheme to appeal to new players, though it’s unknown how and unlikely that it would effect the gameplay in any major way.

The PS4 Pro version of the game will offer users with two options. A Cinematic mode, which will render the game in dynamic 4K at 30 fps and a Performance mode which targets 60 fps.

Characters

The strength of Team Ico’s games usually lays within their subtlety and nuance. Shadow of the Colossus doesn’t have many characters to think about, and the ones that are there are generally going to be mute, letting the world, situation and actions tell the story of the game.

Wanderer is going to be spending the majority of the game on his own, riding his horse or crossing the majestic landscapes in order to fulfil his mission to destroy the Colossi, because a mysterious voice said that doing so will allow him to revive his dead love. You can probably imagine why the love doesn’t exhibit much personality to write about.

To these ends, Wanderer will scour the lands, search out and put down each massive Colossus and kill them in order to see his love alive again. As the major appeal of the game is these encounters, we’ll refrain from biographing each within this wiki.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.