E3 2013: Last Guardian development ‘alive and kicking’

Development of Team ICO’s long-awaited game The Last Guardian is still alive and kicking, says Shuhei Yoshida.

Speaking to CVG, Sony’s worldwide studios president said lots of developers were still at work on the title at the Japanese studio, but did not provide any news on when it would show off progress on the game or when it might see release.

Yesterday SCEA president Jack Tretton told Eurogamer that while the project hadn’t been cancelled, it was currently on hiatus.

Yoshida denied this however, and said that despite hitting difficult technical issues, the project was still underway.

“Game development is not easy at all,” said Yoshida.

“The Last Guardian looks to be an extreme case but actually I don’t think that’s the case. What’s extreme is the vision of Ueda-San and the team, which is extremely interesting for all of us including myself, consumers and media people. So that kind of keeps us going, even when they hit really difficult technical issues. If it were another project we might have just finished in the middle.”

The Last Guardian, in development at Shadow of the Colossus studio Team Ico, was first revealed in March 2009, but has not been seen again in the four years since it was shown

A number of high profile staff have since left the studio such as creator Fumito Ueda, Shadow of the Colossus producer Kenji Kaido and Last Guardian executive producer Yoshifusa Hayama, with little information coming out about progress on the game’s development and how close the title may be to release.