Fumito Ueda details The Last Guardian

The appearance of The Last Guardian at the Tokyo Game Show was all we needed for a noteworthy show, and while director Fumito Ueda didn’t share much details when the new trailer debuted yesterday, he shared a lot more during a recent Famitsu.com interview.

The trailer shown yesterday (see here) dated the game for “Holiday 2011”. Unfortunately, by holiday, he doesn’t mean Easter or spring break. He told the site that the date means anytime between October and December. With a time frame out, they’re taking higher expectations from fans.

“Now that the release time frame has been announced, we believe expectations will rise even further for those who have been looking forward to the game, so we feel that next we must make it into a title that meets expectations and does not let people down,” he told the site.

Ueda went on to discuss the song choice for the trailer. They chose to use a song with a happy feel because people have been anticipating an unhappy ending for the game. Ueda didn’t want this anticipation to continue considering the game deals with the theme of animals. The trailer also tried to depict the game’s concept of shown comical scenes and psychological occurrences.

The Last Guardian will have some sense of realism, as well. In the trailer, you may have noticed Torico (the creature) burying its droppings. Ueda says they’re including such scenes to invoke realism.

“ICO and Shadow of the Colossus were set in fantasy worlds. People who like movies were hooked in by the fantasy parts and bought the game and played it. However, we wanted to evoke feeling in a greater range of people. While the selection of an animal theme does this, we also thought that in addition to this, showing such physiological occurrences would reach that broader base.

“We also felt that the physiological occurrences could be worked in to create a new type of game design.”

Players are able to feed Torico, as Ueda explains it’s only one of the creature’s psychological elements that the player can’t control. Another example of Torico’s psychological elements is when the player is fighting an enemy and Torico cannot protect you due to some psychological effect or conflict.

“The inability to control is one of this game’s concepts,” said Ueda. “Not that you’ll be totally unable to control things, but there will be some areas that you can’t control. This connects with the game’s reality, and also with the mystery of the game design.”

Speaking of fighting, the boy will be fighting enemies in The Last Guardian; they’re the knights we’ve seen in past media. He cannot properly defeat them by himself, though. According to Ueda, you’ll need Torico most of the time to finish them off.

Ueda was also asked about what’s changed since we last saw the game. Graphically, nothing’s changed, he said. However, in contrast, the game’s movement has received a considerable brush-up. Previously only able to move in set movements, contrast can now move cooperatively with the environment.

He also brought up Team ICO’s new development method. With PS3’s technology, they’re now able to use greater detail and wider spaces in their games, decorating the level using block-like pieces that allows them to add detail to areas where players will never even visit. He mentioned a stage in the game who’s scale is so impressive that people won’t believe that it could’ve been made by one person. It’s because of the team’s development method that the stage can include so much detail and have such scale both at once.

The Last Guardian launches exclusively for PlayStation 3 next holiday season.

Thanks, Andriasang.