The Last Guardian

THE BUZZ: Fumito Ueda—the man behind beloved PlayStation releases like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, and creator of the upcoming The Last Guardian—is one of the best-known talents at Sony Computer Entertainment. If talk is to be believed, however, his time at the company may be over.

According to Eurogamer, Ueda has left Sony, and is now working for the company on a freelance basis in order to get the long-delayed The Last Guardian finished up. The rumor states that, in fact, that prolonged development cycle is one of the reasons for Ueda’s departure from Team ICO.

“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,” SCE Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said last month when giving an update about Guardian‘s progress.

EGM’s TAKE: While Sony’s gaming platforms are known for their big hits like Uncharted, Killzone, Gran Turismo, and many others, Ueda’s creations—ICO and Shadow of the Colossus—stand as two of the most creative and original projects to not only hit the PlayStation family of hardware, but video gaming in general.

While there have been talk as to the goings on of Fumito Ueda, Team ICO, and potential problems that have lead to The Last Guardian‘s development taking as long as it has, if he has truly left the company, it will be a blow not only to Sony, but also PlayStation fans everywhere.

Source: Eurogamer