Last Guardian E3 Trailer: Is It Really In-Game?

By Richard Leadbetter Published 22 June, 2009

Yes, there's no doubt we're late to the party with coverage of The Last Guardian's E3 trailer, but we really wanted a high quality video asset to work with before we analysed it in-depth. The results are somewhat intriguing, and the decision to wait was the right one, but even now there's still an element of uncertainty about what it is exactly that we're looking at.

First off, our general impressions. The chances are they're probably the same as yours: there's no doubt whatsoever that this is a trailer is a wonderful piece of work, and it succeeds mostly because of an ethos that we've seen elsewhere in Sony first party projects, in particular Killzone 2. While the basic magnificence speaks for itself, all console hardware has inherent technical limitations (in short, something has to give) but the impact of those compromises in-game can be lessened through the expert handling of art and tech in concert. So with that in mind, here's the lowdown on what Sony revealed during E3.

The Last Guardian trailer, with the customary technical annotations.

The cinematic style of the whole trailer makes it difficult to pick up what might be gameplay and what might be cut-scenes, but what is curious is that some scenes appear to have anti-aliasing, while others have none at all. Some scenes are confirmed 720p, while others - due to the compression of the video asset - are much more difficult to discern. Adding further to the confusion is the emergence of screenshots on one of our favourite overseas sites, the Korean Ruliweb.

'Last Guardian E3 Trailer: Is It Really In-Game?' Screenshot shot1
'Last Guardian E3 Trailer: Is It Really In-Game?' Screenshot shot2

The ambiguity continues: elements of these scenes are replicated in the trailer at 720p, but here they're 1080p with 2xAA. Click through for the full images.

There is the strong possibility that what we have here doesn't actually feature any gameplay at all, and similar to the original God of War 3 reveal video, is a purpose-built trailer using actual assets from the development but with no in-game action. An alternative is that the trailer is cut together with video taken from the game at various stages of development, which has some plausibility to it bearing in mind the existence of the older video that was leaked pre-E3.

Regardless, there's obviously something special here, but until code is in the wild, or good quality direct feed capture of actual gameplay becomes available, consider this analysis tentative and somewhat incomplete.

Picture of Richard.

About Richard Leadbetter

Rich has been a games journalist since the days of 16-bit and specialises in technical analysis. Commonly known around Eurogamer as the Blacksmith of the Future.

Read more articles from Richard by visiting the Richard Leadbetter archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • CptSupermarket #1 3 years ago

    So the point of that article was what exactly?

  • coolbritannia #2 3 years ago

    to show me a kick ass trailer i missed at E3.

  • Oceans1999 #3 3 years ago

    "Regardless, there's obviously something special here, but until code is in the wild, or good quality direct feed capture of actual gameplay becomes available, consider this analysis tentative and somewhat incomplete."

    But your 'technical breakdown' just concentrates on the weak elements, cheats used, lack of this and that while staying quiet on the seemingly impressive scenes with no attempt at description there passing them off with 'A clever mix of art and tech' comments.

    Still my favorite section on this site but wish you had more 360 stuff in this section.

    Edited by 1 at 22/06/09 @ 19:50

  • flanker22 #4 3 years ago

    i'm not surprised sony has had a long history of pulling a switcharoo when it comes to gameplay footage. even the gran turismo 5 has some scenes which were clearly pre-rendered.

  • Darren #5 3 years ago

    The previous Team ICO games on the PS2 used in-game assets for the cinematics so I would expect the same to be true of the Last Guardian. Certainly while the trailer looks stunning, it doesn't quite have the visual polish that a pre-rendered cinematic would have. Aliasing and texture shimmering are noticeable in the trailer which makes it look real-time to me.

    There's a comparison over on GameTrailers.com which shows the differences between the target render for this game and the final trailer. It can be seen here: [link url=http://www.gametrailers.com/video/trailer-com parison-the-last/51780
    ]http://ww w.gametrailers.com/video/traile...[/link]

    Regardless, it is sure to be both a stunning game to play and a stunning one to look at. Team ICO don't make bad games.

  • Cremp #6 3 years ago

    I had the feeling that they were more critising the video than analysing it. The trailer has a huge amount of extraordinary things, but they were only noting the bad parts. =/

  • monkeylite #7 3 years ago

    Eurogamer in attempting to kick up a fuss when there is nothing shocker!

  • JHuxley #8 3 years ago

    I hate to be the first person to mention this, but SOTC did astonishing things on the PS2. Self shadowing, realistic fur, pseudo HDR...if anyone can do the impossible, it's them. It just takes them 5 years to get there ;)

  • Les #9 3 years ago

    "but until code is in the wild, or good quality direct feed capture of actual gameplay becomes available, consider this analysis tentative and somewhat incomplete."

    Useless would be another way to put it...

  • GreyTheColour #10 3 years ago

    Considering the reputation of these developers, I think it's safe to say that not only is there a lot of gameplay footage in there, but it's all in-engine. Please have some respect for people who've not only demonstrated unbelievable technical prowess (probably the greatest developers in that regard) but have pursued artistry to help this struggling medium.

  • Kaze88 #11 3 years ago

    Even i think that there were more critising the graphics than analysing. Team ICO has always used only in-game engine on their cutscenes. i only saw 2 about 3 sec parts that might have been done on computer CGI. "there are no in game sequences in the video"...what? what about the boy sneaking on the ledge, climing up on the chain, trying to get free from the soldiers crasp, throwing drums on the guards. Im quite sure that those were gameplay.
    Plus you were wondering how the graphics, anti aliasigns or etc are better on some scenes than others...never tought that they have taken footage on different parts of the game on different development stages? if im not mistaken the game isnt shipping over a year so why expect polished vid? cmon! Now you might wonder that why didnt they make the vid being same stage on every part, because Team ICO aint big game developer company like ubisoft, activision or EA. If they were they might had demo of it or smooth polished vid on every aspect. if you are still thinking that it cant be in-game, just watch God of war 3 and Uncharted 2 which look amazing.
    Maybe you guys are just thinking this lil too hard and deeply. Developers can make amazingly good looking games also on ps3, but dont expect little game developer studios to make so polished vids for our eyes like the big game developers do...they got theyr hands full for DOING THE GAME IT SELF!
    Edited by 1 at 24/06/09 @ 12:19

  • gabor #12 3 years ago

    i wonder why most of the commenters are either offended by the article, or trying to defend the developers...
    the technical-video was quite similar to the other technical-breakdown-videos done by digitalfoundry, also it praised the game several times in the "comments".. so, what's the problem here?

  • Nocturne #13 3 years ago

    It seems that one of the advantages of developing for a console is that "tricks" can be more easily exploited. This isn't a bad thing, because really it's all one big "trick" anyway. Learning the strengths, weaknesses, and quirks of a console just allows developers to get more out of it, because in the end what matters is that the final image looks good, and not that it was produced in a computationally more expensive way.

    Being able to imaginatively work around the constraints of a platform seems to be one of the talents of Team Ico, and it was well-evident in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

  • Alkeno #14 3 years ago

    There is no problem, gabor. I guess most people commenting are not used to Digital Foundry videos...

    Saying that something is physics-based is positive, as is saying that a shadow is not realtime. As long a the result are good-looking every trick in the book is valid in order to show graphics. Most good looking games on console tend be be at the end of the lifecicle and heavy on tricks (because realtime can only get you up to a point with the available power... when you reach the limit of the system and the engine is well optimised, only good art direction and good tricks can give you the edge). The guys at Team ICO are good at it and it shows, their games look fantastic.

    My only complaint is that I don't get why the boy seems to be posterized/cartoonish/differently lit than the rest of the world and the BigDragonSidekick. Maybe art direction, maybe they need more time to integrate him properly.