Fumito Ueda, the creator behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, has been working on The Last Guardian for more than seven years. It was announced in 2009 as a PlayStation 3 game, and in the following years disappeared so far into obscurity that many presumed it had been canceled. It made a triumphant return, however, at E3 2015 where it had hopped generations for release on PlayStation 4. After one final small two-month delay moving the game from its original October release to December, Sony's president of worldwide studios Shuhei Yoshida announced that the game was finally, truly complete.
We haven’t been able to play the full adventure yet, but we did get a chance to speak with the game’s venerated creator about his upcoming post-Last Guardian life, some of his favorite recent games, and what time of the day he gets his creative work done.
I understand The Last Guardian has gone gold. The game is done. How do you feel about that? Nervous? Relieved? Excited?
Fumito Ueda: All the above, obviously. But to be honest, it hasn’t really sunk in yet for me. It’s not just The Last Guardian where I’m feeling this way once we know that the final master is gone and it’s already in production. Even with the two previous titles, it’s always taken a little while, maybe even a few months, for it to really sink in and for me to really feel that everything has been completed and it’s done and it’s out. So I’m still in that mode right now.
What are you going to do following The Last Guardian? Are you going to continue to make video games? Are you going to for a rest for a while?
Again, being completely honest here, a long break or recharge moment at least is necessary. Not just for myself but also for the staff who worked on this title. It’s been a very long time, so I don’t even want to think about the next game just yet in a way that it is very active in my mind yet. I think I owe it to myself that I need to take a little bit of a break and recharge my batteries.
But there are certainly some ideas floating around in there, I’m sure.
Yeah. So I certainly have some ideas. In fact, they’re not just brand-new fresh ideas from recent times. Even throughout development, as you know, there’s been some kind of hold periods that we’ve had or moments where my brain would maybe wander off to think about some new ideas. So they’ve all been sort of stashed away for a while so once I recharge my batteries, I think it would be nice to bring them back from the little box that had been stashed away and I’ll bring those out.
Video games, since their inception, have been about explosions and action, but all of your games have maintained a level of subtlety with a focus on emotional storytelling. How have you been able to achieve that?
If you were to ask me the question, not trying to paraphrase or rephrase it, but if you were to ask me the question, “Is this just a style of my choice?” Then I would have to say that it’s not. I don’t go in by being very picky about the style of game that I make. My approach is that there are so many games out there that are maybe similarly treated that as a result, I would have a tendency to go in a different direction. On top of that, I’m always thinking about how to make the best out of the limited resources that we have available, and in that condition or in that situation, how can this creation stand out amongst the others. So it’s very much sort of dependent on the environment and our surroundings.
To give you an example, if there is a world in the future where there is an abundance of games that have a very similar style to what I make – who knows? I may actually go the opposite direction and make games that are explosive and very much in your face. So, I wouldn’t say there isn’t a possibility of me turning a corner and making that kind of game, but that’s just kind of the natural result that has led me to go in this direction.
What are some of your favorite games, from this year or otherwise?
Inside is one. Also, Dragon Quest Builders. Obviously in Japan, it’s kind of become a very, very big successful title out here.
Can you briefly tell me why you like Inside so much?
It’s a little difficult to clearly or properly express this, but I think it’s the fluid controls. There almost like silky smooth controls and it just feels so good. That is not to say that other elements or aspects of the game, the visuals and the level design, they’re all great. I think they did a really fine job with it. But the thing that really stuck with me most is the silky smooth controls.
Why is having a partner through the course of a game is so important? You have Yorda in Ico, Agro in Shadow of the Colossus, and though I haven’t played it yet, it seems like Trico serves this role in The Last Guardian.
I’ve been making games for about 20 years now. It took me a while to actually get into games, compared to maybe some people who went straight out of college or university. I was around 25-years-old when I entered the industry. And before that, I was striving to become someone, or do work in the arts or film industry. So when I made that transition to games, inside of me I was like, "You know what? I'm changing over medium, going from arts and film to video games. There's something that I must do to prove to myself that this is something only I can do in a video game, that I can only express in a video game, that I can't do in other arts or film if I continue to go down that path."
As a result with video games being a media where you can have an A.I. character, have an NPC character, but also have communication with the character and grow relationships or bond with – that's something that cannot be done in film. Maybe as a result of that my energy and focus has gone down that path and that's why you see partner characters in my games. That's not to say that there won't be other elements that I discover that cannot be done in film or other forms of art. If I discover something like that, it might be an element that I may start introducing into my game creations.
For more from Fumito Ueda, including his thoughts on a Shadow of the Colossus movie, head to page two.
from www.GameInformer.com - The Feed http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2016/11/10/the-last-guardians-creator-on-subtlety-and-his-bedtime-rituals.aspx
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