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93-533: The Last Guardian is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Japan Studio and GenDesign and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 . Players control a boy who befriends a giant half-bird, half-mammal creature , Trico. Team Ico began developing The Last Guardian in 2007. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda , and shares stylistic, thematic, and gameplay elements with his previous games, Ico (2001) and Shadow of

186-627: A fantasy " setting. Tutankham , debuted by Konami in January 1982, was an action-adventure released for arcades . It combined maze, shoot 'em up, puzzle-solving and adventure elements, with a 1983 review by Computer and Video Games magazine calling it "the first game that effectively combined the elements of an adventure game with frenetic shoot 'em up gameplay." It inspired the similar Time Bandit (1983). Action Quest , released in May 1982, blended puzzle elements of adventure games into

279-446: A joystick -controlled, arcade-style action game, which surprised reviewers at the time. While noting some similarities to Adventure , IGN argues that The Legend of Zelda (1986) by Nintendo "helped to establish a new subgenre of action-adventure", becoming a success due to how it combined elements from different genres to create a compelling hybrid, including exploration, adventure-style inventory puzzles , an action component,

372-571: A monetary system , and simplified RPG-style level building without the experience points . The Legend of Zelda series was the most prolific action-adventure game franchise through to the 2000s. Roe R. Adams also cited the arcade-style side-scrolling fantasy games Castlevania (1986), Trojan (1986) and Wizards & Warriors (1987) as early examples of action-adventure games. Games like Brain Breaker (1985), Xanadu (1985), Metroid (1986) and Vampire Killer (1986) combined

465-452: A portmanteau of "bird" ( 鳥 , tori ) and "cat" ( 猫 , neko ) . The boy can climb on structures, carry objects such as barrels, and operate mechanisms such as levers. Trico's size and agility allow it to reach areas that the boy cannot reach alone, and fight off guards who attempt to capture the boy. Conversely, certain obstacles, such as gates, or glass eyes that frighten Trico, prevent Trico from progressing, and must be removed by

558-767: A subgenre of open world action-adventure video games in the third-person perspective . They are characterized by their likeness to the Grand Theft Auto series in either gameplay or overall design. In these types of open world games, players may find and use a variety of vehicles and weapons while roaming freely in an open world setting. Metroidvania is a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania ; such games are sometimes referred to as "search action", and are generally based on two-dimensional platformers. They emphasize both exploration and puzzle-solving with traditional platform gameplay. Survival horror games emphasize "inventory management" and making sure

651-480: A "collector's edition" including the game, an artbook, a soundtrack, and a statue of a resting Trico and the boy. The week prior to release, Sony's Joe Palmer stated that pre-order numbers were "exceeding expectations", including high interest in the collector's edition. A standalone demo version of The Last Guardian was released for the PlayStation VR on 12 December 2017; the virtual reality version allows

744-623: A "muted aesthetic", such as Impressionist art and music and French cinema. Furakawa wanted to avoid overstating the emotional aspect of the game, which he felt was already sufficiently conveyed through the gameplay and animation, and instead kept the music restrained except during key narrative elements or in specific locales of the game work. Furukawa did not have to adapt his score significantly to account for changes in story and game direction since these elements were still made within Ueda's vision. He worked with audio lead Tsubasa Ito frequently to review

837-534: A boy. The boy (voiced by Tatsuki Ishikawa  [ ja ] ) awakens in a ruined castle in a deep valley known as the Nest. He discovers an enormous creature called a Trico, chained and wounded. Though Trico is hostile, after the boy removes the spears from its body and feeds it, it begins to accept him. The boy unchains Trico and they explore the area, discovering a mirror-like shield that summons lightning-like energy from Trico's tail. The pair make their way through

930-452: A broad audience. He wanted to create a virtual creature that behaved as realistically as possible, avoiding the unnatural behavior of other virtual animals. He based much of Trico's behavior on his childhood experiences growing up in a home full of animals. The final version of Trico is an amalgam of several creatures; the design was "deliberately unbalanced because looking strange was important", according to Ueda. The team wanted to avoid making

1023-545: A choice of what to say. The NPC gives a scripted response to the player, and the game offers the player several new ways to respond. Due to the action-adventure subgenre's broad and inclusive nature, it causes some players to have difficulty finishing a particular game. Companies have devised ways to give the player help, such as offering clues or allowing the player to skip puzzles to compensate for this lack of ability. Brett Weiss cites Atari 's Superman (1979) as an action-adventure game, with Retro Gamer crediting it as

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1116-474: A combination of complex story elements, which are often displayed for players using audio and video. The story is heavily reliant upon the player character's movement, which triggers story events and thus affects the flow of the game. Popular examples of action-adventure games include The Legend of Zelda , God of War , and Tomb Raider series. There is a good deal of controversy over what actually constitutes an action-adventure game. One definition of

1209-448: A complex text parser and no free-moving character. While they share general gameplay dynamics, action-adventures vary widely in the design of their viewpoints, including bird's eye , side-scrolling, first-person, third-person , over-the-shoulder, or even a 3/4 isometric view . Many action-adventure games simulate a conversation through a conversation tree . When the player encounters a non-player character , they are allowed to select

1302-515: A first person game. Ueda left Sony in December 2011, although he remained under contract to finish work on The Last Guardian . Around mid-2014, he formed GenDesign (stylized as genDESIGN), made up of former members from Team Ico to help complete development of The Last Guardian . At E3 2015 , The Last Guardian was announced for release on October 25, 2016, but was later delayed to December 6, 2016. In September 2018, Ueda revealed that

1395-517: A game with a mix of elements from an action game and an adventure game , especially crucial elements like puzzles inspired by older adventure games. Action-adventures require many of the same physical skills as action games, but may also offer a storyline, numerous characters, an inventory system, dialogue, and other features of adventure games. They are typically faster-paced than pure adventure games, because they include both physical and conceptual challenges. Action-adventure games normally include

1488-463: A live gameplay demo as the artificial intelligence behavior of the animal creature could be sporadic and impact the demonstration. Ueda said that the fundamentals of the gameplay had not changed from the original PlayStation 3 version to the PlayStation 4, only that with the more-powerful PlayStation 4, they were able to put more detail into the characters and the environment. Though the game demo

1581-442: A main developer of the game despite his prior departure from Sony. According to Chris Plante of Polygon , the gameplay presented shows the same gameplay from previous demos, where the young boy and the large creature work together to solve various platforming puzzles. The presentation at E3 2015 was based on the milestone of the game being fully playable, affirmed by selected members of the press, though Yoshida stated they did not do

1674-408: A person under a mechanical structure, which is thought to be from the new game. He described himself as a very inquisitive child saying "I enjoyed catching and keeping living things, such as fish or birds. Other than that, I liked both watching and making animation. Basically, I seemed to be interested in things that moved." Among his favorite subjects in school was art. He commented, "If I was not in

1767-408: A renewal was an administrative oversight, and the game was still in development. Prior to the reintroduction in 2015, some journalists expressed concern if The Last Guardian would be as much a landmark game as initially seen. Evan Narcisse for the website Kotaku opined that the lengthy delay of The Last Guardian ' s release since the 2009 reveal may have been harming the game's relevance on

1860-566: A saga involving elements of both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus wherein a young boy resembling Ico partners up with a colossus-sized companion to complete puzzles. Ueda later confirmed The Last Guardian to be related to the two previous installments. In an interview with G4tv.com in 2009 he expressed admiration for the method of cut-scene story-telling in Valve's Half-Life 2 , and when questioned directly expressed an interest in making

1953-711: A side-scrolling platformer format with adventure exploration, creating the Metroidvania platform-adventure subgenre. Similarly, games like 005 (1981), Castle Wolfenstein and Metal Gear (1987) combined action-adventure exploration with stealth mechanics, laying the foundations for the stealth game subgenre, which would later be popularized in 1998 with the releases of Metal Gear Solid , Tenchu: Stealth Assassins , and Thief: The Dark Project . The cinematic platformer Prince of Persia (1989) featured action-adventure elements, inspiring games such as Another World (1991) and Flashback (1992). Alone in

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2046-400: A single avatar as the protagonist . This type of game is often quite similar to role-playing video games . They are distinct from graphic adventures , which sometimes have free-moving central characters, but also a wider variety of commands and fewer or no action game elements and are distinct too from text adventures , characterized by many different commands introduced by the user via

2139-507: A stable framerate. Philip Kollar of Polygon compared technical aspects to its predecessors release on the PlayStation 2 due to the long development across multiple generations of Sony consoles, stating that the game at times did take advantage of the PlayStation 4 hardware while in others, such as framerate and control issues made its age more noticeable. Sam Byford of The Verge commented that while framerate drops were common in Shadow of

2232-405: A year and a half. In 1997, Ueda joined Sony Computer Entertainment as a first-party developer . In Sony Computer Entertainment's Japan Studio , he began work on Ico . After Ico , Ueda and his small team, better known as Team Ico , started work on Shadow of the Colossus . In February 2007, Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reported that Ueda and his team were working on a game for

2325-735: Is an action game that includes situational problem-solving. Adventure gamers may also be purists, rejecting any game that makes use of physical challenges or time pressure. Regardless, the action-adventure label is prominent in articles over the internet and media. The term "action-adventure" is usually substituted for a particular subgenre due to its wide scope. Although action-adventure games are diverse and difficult to classify, there are some distinct subgenres. Many games with gameplay similar to those in The Legend of Zelda series are called Zelda clones or Zelda -like games. Popular subgenres include: A Grand Theft Auto clone belongs to

2418-676: Is the first Team Ico game to use a full physics engine , Havok . According to Ueda, the effect of wind was modeled separately for each of Trico's feathers. Yasuhide Kobayashi, vice president of Japan Studio, stated that the title The Last Guardian was chosen to appeal to the larger demographic markets in the United States and Europe for the PlayStation 3, hoping to avoid the cultural problems in title and artwork blamed for Ico ' s low sales in western countries. In August 2019 interview Fumito Ueda mentioned that Trico they were creating on PlayStation 3 actually had more motion patterns than

2511-631: The Uncharted franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Ark: Survival Evolved . Fumito Ueda Born on April 19, 1970, in Tatsuno , Ueda graduated from the Osaka University of Arts in 1993. In 1995, after trying to make a living as a visual artist, Ueda decided to pursue a career in the video game industry . He joined the developer WARP and worked as an animator on

2604-476: The PlayStation 3 . No details about the unnamed title were revealed. In 2008, in the August edition of PlayStation Magazine , Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida commented that both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus took 4 years to develop as a hint that the game was under production, but was not close to release. The game was revealed at E3 2009 as The Last Guardian , the trailer for which suggests

2697-818: The "first to utilize multiple screens as playing area". Mark J.P. Wolf credits Adventure (1980) for the Atari VCS as the earliest-known action-adventure game. The game involves exploring a 2D environment, finding and using items which each have prescribed abilities, and fighting dragons in real-time like in an action game . Muse Software 's Castle Wolfenstein (1981) was another early action-adventure game, merging exploration, combat, stealth, and maze game elements, drawing inspiration from arcade shoot 'em ups and maze games (such as maze-shooter Berzerk ) and war films (such as The Guns of Navarone ). According to Wizardry developer Roe R. Adams, early action-adventure games "were basically arcade games done in

2790-417: The 2015 trailer, and the final game, found very few changes in the game's structure and nature, while observing several improvements and changes made to the rendering systems. The Last Guardian ' s original score was written, orchestrated, conducted, and co-produced by Takeshi Furukawa . Furukawa had joined the soundtrack development around 2011, near the same time that the game was being transitioned to

2883-407: The Colossus (2005). He employed the "design through subtraction" approach he had used for his previous games, removing elements that did not contribute to the core theme of the connection between the boy and Trico. Sony announced The Last Guardian at E3 2009 with a planned release in 2011 for the PlayStation 3 . It suffered numerous delays; Ueda and other Team Ico members departed Sony, forming

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2976-411: The Colossus , they were more acceptable based on the PlayStation 2 hardware of the time and the extent the game maximized out the console's hardware, while such issues on PlayStation 4 for The Last Guardian were less forgivable, making it feel like "a PS3 game that never really came together until the brute force of new hardware allowed the team to ship"; he contrasted this to Final Fantasy XV which had

3069-428: The Colossus ; Ueda stated there was "a bit of each of those [games] in there". He described the relationship between the boy, Trico, and the guards as a game of rock-paper-scissors that changes throughout the game; at times, the boy needs Trico to protect him, while at others the situation is reversed. Though Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have a similar changing connection between pairs of characters, Ueda said there

3162-490: The Dark (1992) used 3D graphics , which would later be popularized by Resident Evil (1996) and Tomb Raider (1996). Resident Evil in particular created the survival horror subgenre, inspiring titles such as Silent Hill (1999) and Fatal Frame (2001). Action-adventure games have gone on to become more popular than the pure adventure games and pure platform games that inspired them. Recent examples include

3255-549: The Japanese video game sales charts, with 82,260 copies sold. The following week, it sold an additional 10,754 copies in Japan, bringing the total number of copies sold in the country to 93,014. Action-adventure game An action-adventure game is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, classical adventure games have situational problems for

3348-465: The PlayStation 4 version did, as they were unable to transfer everything due to transition time issues. With initial ideas for The Last Guardian envisioned by Ueda since around 2005 after completing Shadow of the Colossus , the game was in active development since 2007, a year after the release of the PlayStation 3 . The working title was Project Trico , revealed to the public due to a leaked video posted at PlayStation Lifestyle in 2008 that showed

3441-426: The PlayStation 4. Furukawa had been invited to participate by Tommy Kikuchi, the music director for Shadow of the Colossus . During the platform transition, much of the creative work had been put on hold, and Furukawa did not spend extensive effort on the composition until about 2013, three years prior to release. He completed his compositions in early 2016. Furakawa stated that Ueda trusted him with freedom to compose

3534-620: The Target Render and later provided a short vertical slice of the game to the press for the Game Developers Conference in early March 2011. Ueda had considered including this demo on the then-upcoming remastered The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection , though it was ultimately not included. Behind the scenes, the development of The Last Guardian was considered slow by Shuhei Yoshida ,

3627-410: The animal cute, and instead focused on realistic-looking behavior with "animal-like expressions". Trico's ears react with a cat-like "twitch" if they touch ceilings or other tall features, using the game's mesh-based collision detection . The team added the ability to summon lightning from Trico's tail to have players understand Trico's "force and ferocity". Ueda described Trico as "adolescent", allowing

3720-479: The animation interactions for both, whereas Trico's size meant the boy's animations would not need to affect him much. Although the boy is less detailed than Trico, he was animated via key frame animation. He places hands on nearby walls, and reaches to pet Trico without player interaction. Ueda felt these animations were necessary to help convince the player of the game world. The animation system uses layers of animation that mimic real-life physics, taking advantage of

3813-399: The areas of previous games for the characters they had designed in advance, for The Last Guardian they made Trico as flexible as possible, allowing them to create levels and have Trico adapt to them. The size difference and interactions between the boy and Trico were informed by the limitations of the PlayStation; if the characters were of the same size, the team would have needed to determine

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3906-408: The boy enter a mysterious tower and discover a malevolent force, the "master of the valley", which manipulates creatures and soldiers. It summons several creatures of the same kind as Trico, which regurgitate stolen children into the tower and savage Trico, tearing off the end of its tail. The boy uses the mirror to summon energy from the severed tail segment and destroy the master of the valley, causing

3999-466: The boy wields a reflective mirror that summons lightning from Trico's tail, which can be used to break certain objects. The player is returned to the last checkpoint if the boy is captured by guards, or if he falls from too great a height. Multiple playthroughs unlock additional costumes based on previous Ueda games. The Last Guardian ' s story is framed as a flashback told by an older man (voiced by Hiroshi Shirokuma ) recounting his experience as

4092-535: The boy. The boy must locate barrels to feed Trico when it is hungry, pet Trico to calm it after a battle, and remove spears thrown at Trico by enemies. Though the player initially has little command over Trico, the boy learns to command Trico to leap onto ledges or head in a certain direction, among other actions. Although players are encouraged to train Trico to move in the right direction, new areas can be discovered by letting Trico wander independently. At various points,

4185-406: The castle ruins, evading the ghostly soldiers, and Trico's broken horns and wings slowly regrow. In a flashback, Trico flies to the boy's village and steals him from his dormitory. It flies back to the Nest, but is struck by lightning and chained up by the soldiers. In the present, Trico resuscitates the boy after a cave collapse. After fending off an attack from a second, armored creature, Trico and

4278-414: The character difficult and managing the game's camera tricky, elements that made the game feel like a PlayStation 2 game rather than something on modern hardware. Wired ' s Chris Kohler found much of the demo to require patient observation of Trico's movements and puzzle solving, which, he commented, some players would appreciate but were elements that have slowly been phased out of action games over

4371-442: The character that Wander wants to save, and the colossi that Wander must fight to save her. He was surprised and inspired to find players felt a stronger connection between Wander and his horse Agro. Ueda wanted to make the relationship between a human and a creature the central concept for his next game. Ueda found that people were drawn to games with lifelike creatures, and felt The Last Guardian needed something similar to attract

4464-555: The contemporary market. Narcisse considered that the landscape of games had vastly changed since 2009, during which "by-the-numbers racers, shooters and action-adventure games dominated" the market and the expected emotional impact of The Last Guardian would have made it a stand-out game. Since then, the rise of more independent games such as Papo & Yo , Bastion , The Walking Dead , and Journey had created similar experiences to The Last Guardian , according to Narcisse. Leigh Alexander of Boing Boing agreed, noting that

4557-404: The core experience. Music is used sparingly to highlight key emotional moments, such as when Trico uses his tail to catch the boy as he falls from a collapsing platform. The game uses vertical space to emphasize the boy's small size. The Last Guardian game engine builds on the team's previous development of AI processing from Ico and transformative collisions from Shadow of the Colossus . It

4650-459: The creative content for the game, such as character design and animation and level design, which was then put into place via Japan Studio, with Ueda maintaining oversight on the completed project. Ueda stated that the final game, as of June 2016, still represents the initial vision he had for The Last Guardian at its onset. The transition from the PlayStation 3 to 4 only improved how the game looked, but did not change how it played. Ueda stressed it

4743-455: The creatures to plummet from the sky. Wounded, Trico takes the boy, near-death, and flies to his village. When the terrified villagers attack him the boy instructs Trico to leave. Years later, the boy, now grown, discovers the shield and raises it to the sky, sending a beam of light to the Nest, where Trico resides. In his previous game, Shadow of the Colossus , director Fumito Ueda had intended to create an emotional interaction between Mono,

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4836-484: The current "Target Render" of the game at that time. Ueda had long considered the development time for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus , and had anticipated being able "to create something good in a short period of time" with The Last Guardian at the onset. By 2009, the development team had completed enough of the game for it to be showcased during the E3 2009 , using an improved render of the same set pieces previously seen in

4929-423: The delay of The Last Guardian had spanned a console generation, and other emotionally filled games have been offered in lieu of The Last Guardian . GamesIndustry.biz ' s Rob Fahey considered that both The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy XV , which also had a protracted development cycle lasting nearly a decade, represent the last remnants of game development practices from the early 2000s, challenged by

5022-412: The detail and realistic behavior of Trico and the boy were "emotive in a way that most developers wouldn't even attempt", potentially being the reason behind the long development, praising the effort put in by Fumito Ueda and the developers nonetheless. US Gamer ' s Jermey Parish believed that Trico as an in-game character with its own apparent volition was revolutionary in character design, and that

5115-417: The developers to add humor through its actions. The team used programmed key frame animations instead of more common motion capture techniques, allowing them to capture subtleties that would be difficult using live animal subjects. As Trico functions similarly to the colossi the player climbs in Shadow of the Colossus , journalists have described The Last Guardian as a combination of Ico and Shadow of

5208-531: The development delays in The Last Guardian and lack of updates from Sony, The Last Guardian was considered to have been in development hell over its eight-year development period. Ueda and Yoshida would regularly report progress on the game, but the title was notably absent from major video game conventions, including E3 and the Tokyo Game Show . Journalists also expressed concern with

5301-416: The emotional relationship between Trico and the boy was something that could only be effectively done with the interactivity of a video game. In contrast, Marty Sliva of IGN was critical of Trico's behavior during puzzles combined with camera controls making sections of the game more frustrating, particularly during interiors due to the cramped nature of certain levels and the size of Trico detracting from

5394-434: The environment and performing tasks even without player input, making the act of controlling Trico at times "ineffective and unnecessary". Reviewers also noted performance problems with the game running on default PlayStation 4 hardware. Eurogamer ' s Digital Foundry determined that the game ran into rendering issues and framerate drops on the PlayStation 4, while running at 1080p on the newer PlayStation 4 Pro provided

5487-465: The experience, calling it "rare to even have to think about the camera in a third-person game in 2016, but I found myself constantly being pulled out of the experience trying to wrestle with my point of view". Sliva however still felt that the game succeeded in the attachment with its characters and delivered memorable moments despite its issues. Game Revolution ' s James Kozanitis found that there were moments that Trico would continue with traversing

5580-475: The game Enemy Zero for the Sega Saturn under the director Kenji Eno . He described his time there as "arduous", as the game was behind schedule and everyone on the project had to work more than normal to meet the release deadline. Eno, who also owned the company, did not think he was that great a digital artist, but handpicked Ueda because of his talent with concepts and design. Ueda worked at WARP for

5673-459: The game does exist and is playable. The Last Guardian was announced for a 25 October 2016 release in Japan and North America during Sony's presentation at E3 2016 in June, and was available in a playable form to attendees. In an interview with Kotaku during E3 2016, Ueda commented that the game was fully complete, and the only work remaining was fine-tuning visuals and cut-scenes. A short delay

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5766-438: The game on the PlayStation 3 hardware. In 2015 Yoshida revealed that the previous 2009 trailer was "specced up", running at a much lower frame rate on the PlayStation 3 and sped up for the presentation. Around 2011, Sony brought in many of their core development teams such as Santa Monica Studios to review the code and try to improve the performance. In 2012, with Sony preparing to announce the PlayStation 4 and still recognizing

5859-458: The game's engine rebuilt after its target platform was switched to eighth-generation consoles. The game was named on several year-end Game of the Year lists, including The New Yorker , Engadget , GameSpot , VG247 , and Polygon . A 2023 poll conducted by GQ which surveyed video game journalists across the industry listed the title as the 88th best video game of all time. Because of

5952-411: The game's environment and story as some of its strongest elements, while the realism of the animal behavior that Trico exhibits was praised by some critics, yet others felt that the realism also hampered the gameplay causing impatience and frustration due to lack of immediate action by Trico when giving commands. GameSpot ' s Pete Brown praised the characters, their relationship and the story as

6045-406: The gameplay still follows a number of adventure game genre tropes (gathering items , exploration of and interaction with one's environment, often including an overworld connecting areas of importance, and puzzle-solving). While the controls are arcade-style (character movement, few action commands) there is an ultimate goal beyond a high score. In most action-adventure games, the player controls

6138-473: The gameplay. Like its predecessors Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005), The Last Guardian is a third-person game that combines action-adventure and puzzle elements. The player controls an unnamed boy who must cooperate with a half-bird-half-mammal creature to solve puzzles and explore areas. The name of the creature, Trico ( トリコ , Toriko ) , can be taken to mean "prisoner" ( 虜 , toriko ) , "baby bird" ( 鳥の子 , tori no ko ) , or

6231-551: The games industry, I would want to become a classical artist. Though I regard not only games but also anything that expresses something – be it films, novels or manga – as forms of art." Ueda played many Sega Mega Drive games, which influenced his work. He was also a fan of the Amiga computer platform games Flashback and Another World during his teen years. Other games that influenced his work include The Legend of Zelda , Virtua Fighter , and Prince of Persia . He

6324-416: The greater processing power of the PlayStation 4. The team considered making the player character a girl, but felt it would not be realistic that a female character would have enough stamina to climb Trico. To create the game's art and architecture, the team used the same "design through subtraction" method they had used to develop Ico and Shadow of the Colossus , removing elements they felt distracted from

6417-591: The important aspects to the game and overall experience, noting interactions with Trico and acting very independently at times by not knowing "if it's a concerted effort to test your patience for a lovable-yet-stubborn creature". However Brown felt that it added personality to Trico and "sympathy for both characters" in addition to their development within the story and for the player, "culminating in an enrapturing series of revelations that cements your attachment to their personalities". Tom Senior of GamesRadar called Trico "the greatest AI companion in games", in addition to

6510-483: The last console generation, and other players may not have the patience for these. Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku also noted that the demo's pace was often set by how fast Trico would respond or react, which may test the patience of players looking for a more action-based experience. In the UK, The Last Guardian suffered lower than expected sales, debuting at number 7 in the weekly game sales charts. It debuted at number four in

6603-474: The lead programmer from Ico and Shadow of the Colossus , created a new studio, GenDesign . In founding the studio, they were faced with a choice, according to Ueda: "Do we try to create something new, or do we keep going, providing support on The Last Guardian ?" GenDesign opted to commit themselves to helping Sony complete The Last Guardian through contract and working alongside Sony's internal studio, Japan Studio . Under this arrangement, GenDesign developed

6696-452: The music and providing only a broad direction of a cinematic soundtrack and some specific directorial notes. While he was aware of the reputation of the soundtracks by Michiru Oshima and Kow Otani for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus , respectively, and wanted to have The Last Guardian ' s soundtrack to be similarly unique, Furukawa opted to avoid using these previous works and instead drew his own inspirations primarily from works with

6789-461: The nature of the game's lengthy development period. Patrick Garrett, writing for VG247 , found that the visuals felt flat and aged considering modern hardware capabilities, and expressed concern that while older gamers would readily purchase the game, The Last Guardian may not draw in enough newer gamers to be a commercial success. Philip Kollar for Polygon , though still impressed with the characters, graphics, and core gameplay, found controlling

6882-489: The player has enough ammunition and recovery items to " survive " the horror setting. This is a thematic genre with diverse gameplay, so not all survival horror games share all the features. The Resident Evil franchise popularized this subgenre. Action-adventure games are faster-paced than pure adventure games, and include physical as well as conceptual challenges where the story is enacted rather than narrated. While motion-based, often reflexive, actions are required,

6975-464: The player to experience interacting with Trico from the viewpoint of the boy. After the launch of the PlayStation 5 in November 2020, players discovered that this game runs at 60 frames per second when playing an unpatched version from the PlayStation 4 disc. The Last Guardian received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic . Most reviewers praised

7068-473: The player to explore and solve to complete a storyline, involving little to no action . If there is action, it is generally confined to isolated instances. Classical action games, on the other hand, have gameplay based on real-time interactions that challenges the player's reflexes and eye-hand coordination . Action-adventure games combine these genres by engaging both eye-hand coordination and problem-solving skills. An action adventure game can be defined as

7161-528: The potential release of the game when The Last Guardian trademark had hit some critical milestones. In August 2012, about three years after the trademark had been filed in the United States, Sony had yet to produce a viable product under trademark law, and in February 2015, Sony failed to renew the North American trademark for The Last Guardian . Sony re-registered the trademark, noting that lack of

7254-434: The president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide. Yoshida explained that the vision for The Last Guardian was based on a video prepared by Ueda to demonstrate the concepts and style of the game, a process Ueda had used for Ico , and Sony wanted to stay true to that vision. Team Ico, which is a small studio compared to other Sony studios in Japan or other Western developers, were struggling with achieving Ueda's vision for

7347-428: The process, as other teams worked to take the highly customized PlayStation 3 code to adapt it to the PlayStation 4; this included the help of PlayStation 4 lead architect Mark Cerny . With the reintroduction of the game at the E3 2015 , Yoshida explained that the game engine is now fully running at speed on the PlayStation 4 and that the remainder of the development lies with the game designers to complete. Development

7440-408: The rise of mobile gaming, independent game development, and more efficient software development practices that change the nature and role of auteurs like Ueda and Final Fantasy ' s Tetsuya Nomura in game development. News writers were able to play The Last Guardian at E3 2016 and the 2016 Tokyo Game Show in the months before the game's release, and several expressed further concerns about

7533-464: The sluggish development of the PlayStation 3 version of the game, it was decided to change the target platform to the PlayStation 4 so that Ueda's concept could be fully realized. Ueda stated that this choice was primarily Sony's decision, speculating that the PlayStation 3 version of the game at this point would still have been sufficient to convey his concept. Following the target platform switch, Ueda and other members of Team Ico were not as involved with

7626-404: The soundtrack was released by TEAM Entertainment on 21 December 2016. In addition, a two-disc vinyl LP edition was published by iam8bit in 2017. Shawn Layden formally reintroduced The Last Guardian at the beginning of Sony's E3 2015 conference. Sony affirmed that that game was now slated for release on the PlayStation 4 with a 2016 release date. Sony also assured fans that Ueda still remained

7719-564: The status and use of his scored compositions. The performance of the soundtrack was conducted by Furukawa with the London Symphony Orchestra , the Trinity Boys Choir , and London Voices , and was recorded at Lyndhurst Hall . The 19-track Composer's Choice Edition soundtrack was released digitally alongside the game on the PlayStation 4 Music App, and later on other digital retailers. A 24-track CD version of

7812-441: The studio GenDesign, and hardware difficulties moved the game to the PlayStation 4 in 2012, drawing speculation that the game would not see release. Ueda and GenDesign remained as creative consultants, with Ueda as director and Sony's Japan Studio handling technical development. The Last Guardian was reintroduced at E3 2015 . Upon release, it received praise for its art direction, story, and depiction of Trico, though some criticized

7905-437: The studio was at the prototyping stage of designing a new game, supported with funding from the investment fund Kowloon Nights . In March 2020, Epic Games announced that they would be fully funding development, with the two companies splitting profits in half. In 2021, the new game was teased in one of GenDesign's New Year post cards, which features screenshots from Ueda's three previous games and an unidentified screenshot of

7998-571: The subtle use of visual and audio cues to add more character and its effect on the gameplay itself. Reviewing for The Guardian , Simon Parkin praised the design of Trico and its interactions with the world and puzzles, adding further emotional investment. He likened Trico to an "abuse survivor" due to being scared and imprisoned at the start of the game and the thoughtfulness and relationship development of its characters making it "a game, as much as anything, about rehabilitation through kindness and companionship". Chris Carter of Destructoid felt that

8091-430: The term "action-adventure" may be '"An action/adventure game is a game that has enough action in it not to be called an adventure game, but not enough action to be called an action game." In some cases an action game with puzzles will be classified as an action-adventure game, but if these puzzles are quite simple they might be classified as an action game. Others see action games as a pure genre, while an action-adventure

8184-452: Was also influenced by the work of Kenji Eno , and the manga series Galaxy Express 999 (1977–1981). Ueda's games are considered to have a distinctive style, which Ueda himself describes as "design by subtraction", with sparse landscapes, oversaturated lighting and minimalist story to give his games a personal and distinctive feel. Ueda also said that, in video games, ideas for a gameplay mechanic should be made first, then complemented by

8277-526: Was announced in September 2016, pushing the title back to early December 2016 release, as the developers needed more time to fix bugs that had come up during the final production of the game, according to Yoshida. By 21 October 2016, development of The Last Guardian concluded and the game was submitted for manufacturing . A patch for the PlayStation 4 Pro enabled high dynamic range and 4K resolution . In addition to regular retail copies, Sony released

8370-751: Was hampered by Ueda's departure from Sony in December 2011. With Sony's decision to delay the release of the game early that year, Ueda and other Sony and Team Ico employees opted to leave Sony. Ueda stated in 2013 interview that his departure from Sony was due to feeling "a sense of crisis within myself about a lot of things" on news of the delay. Some of those that departed Sony went on to other projects. For example, executive producer Yoshifusa Hayama joined Bossa Studios to work on social/mobile games, while two Team Ico artists joined an indie startup studio Friends & Foes to develop their first game, Vane , which has been compared visually to The Last Guardian . Ueda and other former Team Ico members, including Jinji Horagai,

8463-399: Was important during the extended development cycle to keep the question "what kind of game do I want to play?" at the forefront, and to remember that the game needed to be targeted at players experiencing the game for the first time rather than developers that had played it through over and over. Digital Foundry , in comparing the game from its initial Target Render from 2008, the 2009 trailer,

8556-400: Was more "dynamic range" in The Last Guardian . The Last Guardian is the first Team Ico game to use voice-over narration. As much of the game relies on non-verbal communication between the boy and Trico, Ueda felt the voice-over helped immerse the player in the mindset of the boy. It also provided a way to provide gameplay hints and other context to the player. Whereas the team had designed

8649-481: Was not playable at the 2015 Tokyo Game Show, part of Sony's display for the game including a full-screen version of Trico that would respond in real time to the actions of the attendees as captured by a PlayStation Move camera. Yoshida stated that they had not shown much additional footage of the game since the E3 2015 announcement as they believed that The Last Guardian is story-heavy and feared showing too much beyond that

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