The giant, annual E3 conference in Los Angeles continues to bring forth the goods this year, with a number of big titles being unveiled for the first time such as yesterday’s epic Fallout 4 presentation.
But one revealed today simultaneously caught everyone a little off-guard and managed to take their breath away.
The long in-development, long awaited The Last Guardian was revealed as an exclusive title for the Playstation 4, with a tentative release date attached of “sometime” in 2016.
The game opened Sony‘s two-hour long keynote presentation, and featured a 6 minute long, sparse, but beautiful trailer to accompany it.
Seriously, gang. This is thing is BREATHTAKING.
If the style and gameplay of it look familiar to some of you, it’s with good reason. The game is the brainchild of the fabled and beloved creative director Fumito Ueda whose previous work includes the revolutionary and beloved titles Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.
Though Ueda had left his position Sony Computer Entertainment as a first-party developer back in December of 2011, he remained under contract for Guardian with the intent of delivering it.
The game itself has had a remarkably protracted development phase. First announced back in 2007, it was originally planned for a 2011 release – trade show demos were revealed back in 2009. But new technology and production issues delayed the project.
But as you can plainly see, it’s entirely likely that it’ll be worth the wait. The game will more than like follow in the footsteps of Fumito’s other titles in that very little information is given to the player about the world and character background.
It’s simply a young boy, with a giant, feathery, bird-like cat creature, and their affectionate, loving, co-dependant relationship. Thrust that into a huge, foreboding world, and you’ve instantly got a looming sense of peril and doom about things.
And, we reiterate, HOLY CRAP IT’S FREAKING BEAUTIFUL.
Expect The Last Guardian to hit the PS4 at some stage next year. Expect your sense of whimsy, joy, and fear to be toyed with mercilessly shortly thereafter.
