14 DAY TRIAL // One of the big surprises of the E3 2015 press conference was that The Last Guardian is still in active development and should be launched on the PlayStation 4 at some point in 2016, using the same core concepts that were present when the game was first revealed.
Shuhei Yoshida, the leader of the Worldwide Studios of the company, is quoted by GamesRadar as saying that at one point the project was close to being canceled, but the company was unable to go through with the decisions because of the interest from the public.
The executive adds, "of course we believed in the vision of Ueda-san, and Ueda-san and the core teams really wanted to see this realised, and so did I. Having so many people asking us about the game was great encouragement for us to continue the development."
The Last Guardian was first revealed as a project in 2009, and since then numerous rumors about its cancelation and change in development direction appeared.
Sony says that the shift to the PlayStation 4 means that the technical difficulties associated with the project were overcome, although original director Fumito Ueda is at the moment only linked to the game as a consultant.
The Last Guardian will deliver emotions and exploration
Since the E3 2015 re-reveal, Sony has also said that Mark Cerny, who was involved in the hardware development of the PS4 and created Knack, is not involved in the creation process.
The company also wants fans of the title to continue to express their support for The Last Guardian until an official launch date is revealed.
The core of the experience will be the relationship between the unnamed boy and the creature, a mix of lion and griffin, which follows him around.
Team Ico was interested to expand on the ideas seen in Shadow of the Colossus, and the new game would involve both exploration and a growing sense of connection between the two.
The Last Guardian will have a full physics engine and the recent demo shows that the creature will have different reactions to the player's movements and calls based on its mood and the way it is feeling about the environment being explored.