In an unusual control configuration, typical for Ueda, jump is on the triangle button rather than cross, while clambering up cliff faces involves a somewhat awkward combination of jump and then grip, using the right shoulder button. Little else was known – and, after a long, troubled development cycle, little else still is.īut now we’re here, with the boy in the cave. Partly it was the heritage of Ueda and his team, previously responsible for the ethereal delights of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus but partly it was that first trailer, showing a little boy and the huge doe-eyed monster with whom he appeared to have built a symbiotic relationship. First previewed at E3 in 2009 and certainly in development for at least two years before that, the game has been a fixture on most wanted lists ever since. To be sat in a small demo room hidden away from the hurly burly of the E3 show floor, playing – actually playing – The Last Guardian, seems almost unreal. Then, after a credits sequence illustrated with 16th century etchings of mythological monsters, we see a scene familiar to anyone who has been watching the slow development of Fumito Ueda’s third game for Sony: a small boy, lying asleep next to a vast dog-like beast. While children are heard laughing and playing in the background, the camera approaches some sort of golden artefact half buried in the sand.
It begins with a flashback – or at least that’s what it seems.
