The Last Guardian was announced over a year ago, but all we really know about the game remains the same few elements we saw during its first announcement: a boy as the main character, strange enemies chasing after him, and a giant dog-cat-bird creature tagging along to protect him. But speaking to the PlayStation Blog during Tokyo Game Show earlier this month, creator Fumito Ueda revealed a few more details on the game, and unsurprisingly the main focus was the dog-cat-bird creature named Trico.
One thing Ueda made clear is that despite having this creature as a
companion throughout the game, that doesn't mean The Last Guardian is
all about tending after it. "It's not a pet game, but there is a live
animal in the game," he explained. "I would describe it as an adventure
game that you play with this animal."
The goal of the game, Ueda said, is for the (still nameless) boy
to escape "the location you see in the trailer" (referring to the latest
trailer shown at TGS earlier this month), using Trico's help to get out
-- and that includes having it engage in combat, which the boy won't be
able to accomplish by himself. "As you saw in the video, Trico is able
to defeat an enemy with one swipe," Ueda said. "So in that sense, he
functions as a guardian of sorts. But the boy is unable to defeat the
enemies on his own -- that's the gameplay element involved."
With Trico as the major focus of the game, Ueda said he also
hopes it'll appeal to a wider audience than his last two games -- Ico
and Shadow of the Colossus -- ultimately did. "Because we're using the
theme of an animal for The Last Guardian, I also want people who are not
serious game players to try out this game," he explained. "So I want
the controls to be simpler than before." Ueda confirmed players will
only control the boy (Trico will never be under direct player control),
but the actual control scheme for the game hasn't been decided yet.
Other than that, Ueda just gave a couple other vague hints: that
the enemies chasing after the boy "are not acting fully out of their own
intentions," and that Trico may not be the only large creature in the
world, as "there may be something [else] like that out there." The Last
Guardian won't be out until the 2011 holiday season, so we have a
feeling we're going to see a lot more vague hints before the game's release.
You can see the latest trailer for The Last Guardian below.
Originally posted on 1UP.
