Between ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, and now the upcoming The Last Guardian, one can argue that there is a very specific kind of game that auteur creator Fumito Ueda keeps returning to with his projects- they always explore similar themes, and they do so by telling a story intrinsically true to video games as a medium.
Is this kind of consistency in the themes tackled deliberate? Speaking to EDGE, Ueda pondered the answer to that question, stating that it had more to do with how game hardware influences game design, than it does a deliberate attempt to make a certain kind of game.
“I often get asked about the themes in ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, or The Last Guardian,” he said. “But I’m not really conscious of them. It’s not like I have a specific interest in those themes and that’s why they occur in those games. It’s just that when you’re creating a game you have to think about the hardware, and resources, and programming code and technologies that you have to work with, and then you think about what would be a good theme to express those with. That’s how I arrive at my ideas.
“In a video game, it’s necessary to think about the limitations of what can be presented with a game console, how convincing that presentation can be, the cost of realizing it, and how consistent it can be with the game design. That’s probably why I keep returning to similar ideas.”
The Last Guardian is currently slated for release later this year, exclusively on the PS4.