Sony offers Last Guardian reassurance

By Tom Phillips Published 9 September, 2011

Downplays TGS no-show.

Sony has reassured gamers that Team Ico is still "hard at work" on The Last Guardian, despite the high-profile PS3 exclusive missing the Tokyo Game Show next week.

"We wanted to confirm that The Last Guardian is not on the schedule for this year's Tokyo Game Show," an update on Sony's official PlayStation blog reads.

"However we can assure you that Ueda-san and the rest of the development team are hard at work to bring his lofty vision to life and deliver the very best gaming experience possible."

Last month SCE Studios president Shuhei Yoshida gave an exasperated-sounding Last Guardian progress update:

"It's been very difficult in terms of seeing the progress: not as fast as we'd been hoping for, and the team has been under big pressure," he said.

The Last Guardian was delayed earlier this year to an unspecified time in 2012. The cat-eagle adventure was originally slated for a "late 2011" release.

The 9/10 compilation of previous titles Ico and the Shadow of Colossus will, however, be present.

The Last Guardian.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Timotei #1 9 months ago

    I love my PC but damn, going to have to buy a PS3 when this comes out.

  • ChuckNorris #2 9 months ago

    Take it easy. Don't fall apart. It'll be great and I for one can wait.

  • gjgjg #3 9 months ago

    We have faith! Praise be*starts speaking toungs in a fit of dizzying anticipation

  • Toothball #4 9 months ago

    @Timotei

    Yeah, I also need a PS3 for this. Been meaning to get one but other things have generally pushed back that purchase.

    It might even be better that they won't be throwing a mass of media hype at it. I'm much more interested to discover a game like this for myself. I think I'll be avoiding whatever previews happen between now and launch.

  • Widge #5 9 months ago

    I offer my first born in exchange for game

  • wizlon #6 9 months ago

    They just don't want to admit that development has gone wrong and that they slowly and by complete accident started to make a train simulator.

    I doubt that has happened, but it would explain the delays.

  • Retro_ #7 9 months ago

    Got a sinking feeling that TLG will not be appearing on PS3. I think it's too ambitious a project given the AI the creature requires. I just keep thinking that RAM is the issue here. Perhaps this will become a PS4 release title.

  • Hindle #8 9 months ago

    Post deleted at 23:04:43 04-04-2012

  • FarbrorBaku #9 9 months ago

    @wizlon : But what a train simulator it will be, easily in the top 25 train simulators of all time.

  • Darren #10 9 months ago

    @Retro - After reading the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD review which mentions how much better the latter runs on the PS3, free of the tearing and framerate woes of the original that came out after the Xbox 360 was released, it's a nice idea to think that The Last Guardian would be a PS4 release. It certainly seems like the kind of game that would benefit from better hardware.

    However, I doubt that will happen unless the game is delayed two or more years because the PS3 has a very large user base right now compared with what the PS4 would have in its first few years. More users means potentially more sales, which is absolutely essential for a niche title such as this (Ico and Shadow of the Colossus weren't exactly big hits despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews).

  • Darren #11 9 months ago

    @Hindle - How do you know? It may be the more amazing and ambitious game this generation for all you know! Hopefully that is the case because this generation of hardware certainly needs games like The Last Guardian to counteract the blandness and unoriginality that passes for a typical console game these days.
    Edited by Darren at 09/09/11 @ 10:19

  • MarketZero #12 9 months ago

    @Retro

    There won't be a PS4.

  • TruSmiles #13 9 months ago

    A masterpiece like this will be ready when it's ready :)

  • Negotiator1 #14 9 months ago

    I'm all for innovation in gaming but when it takes this long to produce one game it's just not worth it. It's time for publishers in this case Sony to kick this Ueda-san up his arse, if he can't hit the deadline then drop the game.

  • Golgo #15 9 months ago

    @Hindle & Negotiator1: What do you think you are doing, presuming to comment on games?! Clearly these matters are outside your understanding, so...Begone!

  • andijames #16 9 months ago

    I'm not surprised it's taking time to be fair. It's very ambitious and IIRC all the animation is hand drawn which is meticulous to do but will be well worth it once it's done. As ChuckNorris said at the beginning of the thread.. take your time, get it right and it'll be well worth the wait once it's done. Good things can't be rushed.

  • dadrester #17 9 months ago

    @Darren

    With a game like this it's really not about sales numbers for Sony. This is a showcase title and one that's more about creating a brand image for Sony and increasing hardware take-up, than actually shifting massive numbers of units.

  • RawNinjaKid #18 9 months ago

    Sometimes it's better to have long development times.

    We have had enough unfinished, unpolished and "deadline" met games released this gen, practically every week!


  • vizzini #19 9 months ago

    The longer they hold the release date for this, the better I think it will be, as software development on Sony's consoles seems to go through much bigger software generation changes than most consoles. For instance look at how primitive games, and particularly football games were on PS1 in the early days; say comparing Olympic Soccer to the quality of ISS/PES.

    The reason that seems to happen on Playstation, is that the platform holder tends to invest in discovering new techniques/porting technique and promoting best practices in software development through the SDK; sharing ideas from their first/second party development to. Similar to the publishing of maths and science findings by Universities.

    So it stands to reason, that where a game like resistance will have seen 3 versions and contain many new techniques by version 3, a game like The Last Guardian will have evolved through multiple versions internally, and only letting us as consumers see the finished article; either to denote a mid generation point(like Ico with a followup years later) or signify the last eighteen months of the generation for the core gamer(like SotC did).

  • TheEarlOfZinger #20 9 months ago

    Probably be the ps3 swan song. Akin to Skyward sword on the wii.

  • Ikaros_O #21 9 months ago

    The only game gamers will actually wait patiently for. Take your time.

  • Sonic_D #22 9 months ago

    The HD remakes will tide me over for now.

  • DoctorFouad #23 9 months ago

    take your time please ! we dont want a rushed product !

  • Snowymonk #24 9 months ago

    Wonders whether Ueda-san and team need the additional injection of funds from the HD releases of ICO and SOTC. (in the same way that GT5 Prologue was released to provide funds for GT5)

  • xuiton #25 9 months ago

    it is weird, even in japanese they call it playstation 3.

  • Vortextk #26 9 months ago

    It's a japanese developer. They have no idea how to work in HD with 2-3 years for development time to make it a good game. I thought that this was nearly fact by now. Crappy quickly developed games or good exceedingly long developed games.

  • Hindle #27 9 months ago

    Post deleted at 23:04:43 04-04-2012

  • oreillymj #28 9 months ago

    PS4 launch title with GT6.
    Edited by oreillymj at 09/09/11 @ 14:40

  • Kaminari #29 9 months ago

    No, EG.

    The cat-eagle adventure was originally slated for an early 2010 release.

  • 32768Colours #30 9 months ago

    The phrase "it's ready when it's ready" has many negative connotations (and for good reason), but in Team Ico's case, you know it's going to be worth the wait.

    Take your time guys. We'll all be here waiting when you're ready :)

  • Turfschipper #31 8 months ago

    Delayed ok. Not as far as they wished, ok.


    But i wonder, when we look back at ''the'' trailor of this game, is there anything new? Cause i dont believe any of it.

    They made that traylor and after that they did nothing with it.

    Cause why not show a few screens? or a new traylor? If your working on it, then this should not be a problem. I think a game with the quality of that traylor is not possible anyway on this gen.

  • drxym #32 8 months ago

    I'm interested to see what comes of this title. I've preordered the SOTC for PS3 since I liked it on the PS2 so I hope they take their time with this title and make it something special.