Fumito Ueda hush on resignation rumours

The creative figurehead behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus has yet to respond to suggestions that he has quit Sony Japan with his third project unfinished.

Fumito Ueda is believed to have departed as Team Ico creative director at Sony’s Tokyo development hub; a situation which has yet to be clarified due to Sony’s company-wide gagging order.

And Ueda himself is unwilling to address the rumour, but yesterday assured he is still working on The Last Guardian in a message posted on his personal Twitter account.

News surfacing last week suggested that the 41 year-old will leave Sony once The Last Guardian project is complete, and that he is currently finishing the game in a freelance capacity.

Ueda did not address the claims, though is again active on his personalised Twitter account.

His reasons for leaving the studio, if true, are unclear.

The Last Guardian, a key PlayStation 3 project that completes a trilogy of Team Ico exclusives for Sony, has not yet been unveiled to the public in playable form.

This year it was conspicuously absent at both the Tokyo Game Show and E3.

The first mention of the title in public was nearly three years ago, in March 2009, though the production phase will likely have run further back.

Shuhei Yoshida, who commands Sony’s global fleet of 16 development studios, recently claimed progress for The Last Guardian has been “very difficult, not as fast as we’d been hoping for, and the team has been under big pressure.”