60fps for physical media stalwarts

The Physical Media vs. Digital Media war rages on, and it's a battle that I feel passionately about. Gimme codes for everything. I don't need mount??ains of boxes to stash away. If that means losing some game I'd never re??play a decade from now, good riddance (time of your life).

Score one for the other team. Apparently, Team Ico's The Last Guardian has some next-gen enhancements on PS5 but only if you have the disc. As NX Gamer presents in the video above, The Last Guardian ;runs at 60 frames per second with the disc in the drive, and 30 frames per second as ?a digital entitlement making use of PS5 backward compatibility.

Post-launch patches are the culprit. When The Last Guardian first launched in 2016, it had an uncapped frame rate. That didn't play nicely with PS4 hardware, so it was patched ??to introduce a 30f??ps cap. It made the game much more stable.

Now, anyone who plays The Last Guardian on their PS5 with a disc is ge??tting the unpatched version; anyone who plays it on their PS5 in a digital format is getting served a patched version. That's why the disc runs better now that the PlayStation 5 is actually capable of hitting those higher frame rates.

Finally, The Last Guardian as it was meant to be played. ?Just a console generation later and only for people who are clinging to physical media. You've won the battle but you will not win the war.

The Last Gu??ardian on PS5 runs at 60fps - but only if you have the disc [Eurogamer]

The post The Last Guardian runs better on PS5 but only with the dis??c appeared first on Destructoid.

Merry Christmas

PlayStation Experience is off to an incredibly slow start but one of the first things announced is a free PSVR experience set in the world of The Last Guardian. You do not need to own The Last Guardian to get this, so ??it's a fun gift to the two ??million people who have dropped some bones on a PSVR. 

According to the PlayStation Blog, this VR experience will b??e short and is not intended to be a preview of a larger project. Look for it?? in the PlayStation Store on December 12.

The post The Last Guardi??????????????????????????an is getting a free PSVR experience appeared first on Destructoid.

The Wallet Guardian

You've probably noticed The Last Guardian getting discounts on the PlayStation Store and Amazon, but like?? me, assumed it'd be a brief sale over in a week. But according to Sony (confirming to Polygon), the discount is permanent. 

Down $20 from its original $59.99 price point, the now $39.99 valued game seems too good to pass up. I've been holding off on trying The Last Guardian myself, but after reading our review, watching some of it on Game Grumps, and?? this pric??e cut, I'm in. 

It's a nice gesture?? too given its f??ans waited a million years for it. 

The Last? G?uardian gets a $20 price cut, and it's permanent [Polygon]

The post The Last Guardian gets permanent $20 price cut appeared first on Destructoid.

I can't get enough of this stuff

Trico is the clear highlight of The Last Guardian (especially when he's being a good boy), but I'm also enthralled by its world, too. It's densely d?etailed and flows believabl??y, just begging you to poke your head around every corner and investigate for secrets and insights. It's also surprisingly vertical the further in you get. That fact is made clear with this fan-assembled image of the map.

First, reddit user CandykillerArt (great name) put together an extensive view of the play area from high up "[using] a couple of screenshots from the cutscene towards the end of the game" and "a bit of Phot??oshop trickery" to extract more detail. That a?lone is pretty cool and worth commending.

Then, building off that effort, redditor LYRAA3 annotated the image with specific scenes from the adventure.?? If you've been trying to work out where everything happened, look no further.

View from the tower. My best attempt to piece tog??ether an??d enhance the view of the play area. [reddit]

The post Someone pieced together The Last Guardian’s world appeared first on Destructoid.

Ha

So The Last Guardian came out, was definitely a real thing, and seemed to have an overall positive reception among the community. Sure some people got miffed at Trico's ornery demeanor, but I think a lot of folks recognized it as a beautiful, but flawed a?dventure.

What's next then? Well, director Fumito Ueda spoke to Glixel, and he doesn't seem to really know. He has his doubts about VR for one, but is interested in it, providing a fictional account of a Shadow of the Colossus VR game. Said doubts include potential motion sickn??ess, and the lack of a real market (an interesting point, l?ike he's confirming that PSVR isn't selling as well as Sony wants).

Because of t??hese factors he'd only want to make a VR game if it made "business sense," which, for the virtual reality market, might be a long while. Until they can get the price down on headsets and potential eliminate the wires (they're working on both), I don't see the average person dropping hundreds of dollars, before software and hardware, on the privilege.

It is neat though!

'Last Guardian' Dir??ector Fumito Ueda On Creating Tric??o, Classic Anime, and His Doubts About VR [Glixel]

The post The Last Guardi??an director is interested in VR? See you in 20 years appeared first on Destructoid.

Promoted from our community blogs!

[LimoMaker's seen his fair share of cynicism in gaming but this past year has got to take the cake. I've always been of the mind that you love the damn games that you love, and to not let anyone change your mind, even if TheBlondeBass says otherwise (about Pokémon). Also, don't forget about this month's bloggers wanted prompt, the special little places where we play our games! ~Strider]

A Preamble

Most of you know me ??fairly well at this point. 

You know what I'm like, that? more often than not I can come across?? as fairly blunt or at times rude.

For that, I apologize. My?? type of humor is best ser??ved in person, where the blockades of text do not restrict my ability to make people laugh because, at the end of the day, I feel like making people smile is something that I can be proud of. 

Happiness is something we all get in life through certain things we do or hobbies we indulge in; for almost all of us here, one of those hobbies is gaming?.

Unfortunately for those of us who enjoy indulging in video games, cynicism is sewn far and wide, through different people across different countries and, as of late, it appears that regardless of what you think of a particular video game, some people will be there to tear your opinion asunder and tell you that nothing will be good and that there will probably be setbacks, delays, ?issues, that the earlier game wasn't good enough, that the sequel won't live up to the expectations, that the graphics aren't up-to-scratch, that the game's review score was too low, that the gameplay is generic, etc. 

Happiness, nowadays, is difficult to maintain in the medium of video games and it isn't really any one person's fault. Cynicism has just sort of become a mains??tay in video game culture, where it is more common for people to jump on someone for liking a game, rather than hating it.

Everyone Could Use Some Positivity 

Here's something I never thought I would say: I love Final Fantasy XV. I honest to God cannot believe that I have fallen in love with a game I thought I'd be lukewarm on at best. I love the game inside and out, I love the stupidly?-flashy combat system, I love the goofy-as-all-hell characters, and I love the amount that there is to do. 

Here's something else, something that will probably get me crucified but there is a point to it so I'll say it regardless: I love playing Final Fantasy XV more than I love playing Overwatch.

Whenever I get bored in Final Fantasy XV I can just stop the quest I'm doing and rush off to do something else, kill a monster, take some photos, explore a dungeon and what have you, but whenever I got bored of playing an Attack/Defend game in Overwatch, I would have? to stop playing the game itself because it has ve?ry little depth or variety. 

Now some of you will be tapping furiously on the keyboard in order to share your opinion on what you think of my opinion, probably in an attempt to point out why Final Fantasy XV pales in comparison to the perfection that is Overwatch. 

And you're right, I don't think Final Fantasy XV is a better game, I just happen to enjoy it more. Overwatch has far fewer things to worry about and t?herefore nails them all, making it a near-perfect game in that respect and one of the best hero-shooters on the market. 

But regardless, both games make me happy, they give me such joy while I'm playing them, but because I prefer one over the other I am almost certain that some people take that as a slight upon Overwatch and, for some reason, rall??y to its defense and rip my own opinion apart.

Gamers will tear me down because my own opinion doesn't line up with there's and it is truly a sorry sight to behold. I don't begrudge people who dislike The Last of Us because they're the ones whose taste differs from mine in that regard. It makes me feel sorry that they can't? experience what I can and that they can't get happiness from something that ?brings me joy. 

Meanwhile, I can't really get to grips with why everyone loves the Fallout series and it irks me slightly because I want to experience the same admiration for a game series that everyone else loves (despite the fact that most fans of the series agree that the latest entry to the series wasn't that gr??eat). 

This has been a common trend for years now, where my love and admiration for certain games has caused some to shut me down immediately. I have had gamers tell me I have no taste because I actually enjoy Far Cry 4. Apparently, I can't be a fan of both Call of Duty and Battlefield because the former is 'casual.' 

What is so bad about being positive?

Well, it comes across as if you have ?for??gotten all the shit the industry has pulled over the years. 

Cynical Yet Realistic 

I will never forget the furor around Aliens: Colonial Marines when it released, the realization by millions of gamers that Gearbox had utilized hype, empty promises, and clever marketing to sell a product that didn't meet expectations. The story wasn't compelling, the graphics received a downgrade, the features in the game weren't as varied as the company had promised and all of this meshed together to create a sca??pegoat for people whenever a game begins to receive a monstrous amount of hype.&nb??sp;

(Funny thing is, you can replace 'Aliens: Colonial Marines' and 'Gearbox' with an??y number of games and their respective company and that entire paragraph still makes sense.)

Watch Dogs, Evolve, Titanfall, Destiny, No Man's Sky, the list of overhyped games continues to grow as the industry ?refuses to ease off the hype trai??n and instead utilize it as a way to trick customers into believing that particular games are a more grand experience than they actually are. 

For those of us who already had a stick up our ass about the way companies were starting to handle both their customers and their products, this use of hype was sickening and as the cycle repeated itself over and over, we grew tired of games gaining an enormous amount of media attention and bloated marketing campaigns from the publishers. This led to more and more big-budget games getting more and more scrutiny by the gaming public until eventually, we are at where we are now, with every announcement getting a side-eye by every??one, myself included actually.

As opposed to getting ?;excited about games nowa??days our first reaction is "What's the catch?" 

And this isn't all of our faults, no the AAA games industry itself has soured us on our own hobby. They've put so much emphasis on ridiculously priced season passes, microtransactions in £55 ??games, DLC for as many titles as they can, online-only games being sold at the same price as fully-complete experiences, that they have shown they don't care about the consumer and therefore the consumer doesn't care abou??t them.

The industry perpetuates a cycle of cynicism as they try their hardest to wring every penny from their customers, regardless of how scummy their methods are. Looking at all of the things the industry has pulled, it is perfectly understandable as to why most gamers today would be cynical and ?negative about almost everything the industry has to offer.

For the most part, I too am incredibly condescending about a lot of the things the AAA industry announces/states, mocking companies like Ubisoft, EA, Activision, and Bethesda, calling them out for their misdeeds and their constant spouting of nonsense. Their ability to deflect criticism, to treat the consumer like cattle and not like hum??an beings... I hate it all and do my best to put that across both on here and with my other friends in the gaming community. 

Yet it's just galling to be that way all the time. Being cynical about the industry constantly and not stopping to be happy about some of the?? products just ends up making you miserable.

Y??et in this day and age, being happy is seen as being naïve. The negativity you feel towards the industry should not turn into negativity towards a gamer. 

Middle-Ground

With all that ha?s happened this year, I think so?me damn happiness is required.

This has been, for me at lea??st, the best year in gaming I can remember. 

We've had amazing AAA single-player campaigns like Doom, Dark Souls III, Battlefield 1, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. We've had incredibly fun multiplayer games like Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, Warhammer End Times: Vermintide, Overwatch, and Killing Floor 2. We have been gifted with some near-perfect indie titles this year like Owlboy, Oxenfree, Stardew Valley, Inside, and Firewatch.

Whether you've been down about the things that the gaming industry has done this year, or whether it's exterior things like politics, family life, job loss, the loss of a friend or loved one, I think you can agree that being a little positive, trying to find the positive, is alwa?ys better than living in misery, where everything is shit, everything is terrible, and nothing will ever live up to your expectations. 

A middle-ground kind of has to be reached, I think. I'm not saying you shoul??dn't ever be cynical, because if we aren't then the industry would walk all over us. Keeping yourself savvy on the good and the bad is always necessary, but it isn't necessary to then bring o??thers down with you. 

Do I think that The Last Guardian will be the greatest game I've ever played? No, I don't think that about any game I pick up. But I'm excited, regardless of what people are saying about it I feel like a kid again, just excited to get the damn thing in my hands, much the same way I've been feeling about Final Fantasy XV this past week. I never even thought I'd see those gam??es release so I take pleasure in just seeing them exist.

Negativity and realism are fine in doses, I know this from experience, but I can speak for a lot of people, and I mean a lot of people, when I say that being that way constantly is tiring and taking pleasure in ripping other people's positivity down isn't something heroic or noble, it just makes you ?seem depressing. This could come off as if I think anyone who is cynical is an asshole as if I think that the world doesn't need individuals who are grounded in reality and that ??being cynical of an industry that deserves cynicism is a bad thing. 

That isn't what I think, of course??, I simply wanted to address that turning on your fellow gamers for being positive isn't the right thing to do. When people are being miserable about a game, I let them do them. I'm guilty of it too, where my exterior problems cause me to not enjoy a game as much as I thought I would have, where people have sort of let me get on with it and vent my frustrations. Frankly, when I realize what I've said and how I talked about damn fine games, it makes me embarrassed, because negativity isn't really something I feel I should be proud of.

I do think that a little dose of cynicism can be nece??ssary at times, but after the year we've all had, with our individual and our collective highs and lows, I don't think a little positivity ??will hurt you. 

On the contrary, I think we cou???ld all use a little positivity.

I know I could. 

The post The difficulty of being positive appeared first on Destructoid.

Yakuzin' for a bruisin'

After its initial week's lukewarm 670,000, Final Fantasy XV sales are down to 79,792 in Japan for the week of December 5 - December 11, 2016, the game's second week. That 88% decrease drops it to number five on the software sales rankings, just below newly released The Last Guardian which opened ??at number four with just ove??r 82,000 copies sold.

Also released this week was Yakuza 6, which leads all game sales for the week at 218,168. This is a step down from previous entries, as the last three main entries (Yakuza 3, 4, and 5) all sold more than 350,000 units in their first weeks. Along with Final Fantasy XV last week, it seems there is a trend of games not named Pokémon sell??ing less than previous entries. There is increasing speculation on just how much impact mobile gaming has had console video game sales.

The second and third highest selling games, Pokémon Sun & Moon and Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS respectively, have had more staying power. Despite its lack of online features, Super Mario Maker 3DS still sol?d over 100,000 units in its second week.&n??bsp;

On the hardware front, little changed from last week other than an notable increase in portable Nintendo console sales, includi?ng a near doubling of 2DS sales from last week.

Media Create Sales 12/05/16-12/11/16 [4gamer]

Here is the full softw?are sales rankings for this week. Lifetime sales are in parentheses.

1. [PS4] Yakuza 6 - 218,168 (New)
2. [3DS] Pokémon Sun & Moon - 190,101 (2,379,446)
3. [3DS] Super Mario Maker for 3DS - 117,908 (280,088)
4. [PS4] The Last Guardian -82,260 (New)
5. [PS4] Final Fantasy XV - 79,792 (770,263)
6. [3DS] Miitopia - 27,090 (New)
7. [PS4] Watch Dogs 2 - 17,835 (57,801)
8. [3DS] Puyo Puyo Chronicle - 13,873 (New)
9. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition - 12,505 (946,488)
10. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome Amiibo - 11,333 (38,159)
11. [3DS] Mario Party: Star Rush - 10,460 (88,544)
12. [WIU] Minecraft: Wii U Edition - 10,263 (199,413)
13. [3DS] Sumikko Gurashi: Mura wo Tsukurundesu - 8,744 (90,088)
14. [3DS] Kunio-kun Nekketsu: Complete Famicom Edition - 8,266 (New)
15. [3DS] Kirby: Planet Robobot - 7,357 (485,844)
16. [3DS] All Kamen Rider: Rider Revolution - 6,175 (29,484)
17. [PS4] Touhou Shinhiroku: Urban Legend in Limbo - 6,058 (New)
18. [PS4] Battlefield 1 - 6,050 (220,422)
19. [WIU] Splatoon - 5,852 (1,507,565)
20. [PSV] SD Gundam G Generation Genesis - 5,337 (103,733)

The post Final Fantasy XV sees 88% sales drop i?n second week, Yakuza 6 takes top spot appeared first on Destructoid.

It's real, just like the game

After all these years and cancellation allegations out the wazoo, you can finally buy and play The Last Guardian.

You can watch this 3D chalk art too, which cements the fact that Trico looks even more like Falcor than we give him credit for. Speaking of, you know how you sometimes go through hours-long Wikipedia kicks? I did that for Neverending Story the other day, comparing and contrasting? the plot of the book and the first two films (which while truncated, ??are the book).

Where was I going with this? Oh, Trico is a little more adorable than Falcor, who kind of scare??d me as a kid.

The post This 3D chalk art for The Last Guardian is rad appeared first on Destructoid.

Beats Shadow of the Colossus, but doesn't hit No. 1

The wait was excruciating, but it seems to have paid off for Sony's Japan Studio. The Last Guardian has sold better than both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus did on launch in the UK, but its performance hasn't placed it at number one. Losing out to titles like Infinite Warfare and Dead Rising 4, Team Ico's latest still managed to place ahead of Nintendo's juggernaut of Pokémon Sun and Moon. That is impressive, considering how?? consistently Nintendo games tend to sell.

It should be noted that these sales are only taken from the UK release and that they do not include digital copies. I don't believe that the digital numbers would increase the sales position of The Last Guardian, but it could mean good things for the game. Hopefully this will show Sony that sticking to promises and taking risks pays off, as?? most publishers would have cancelled this title a long time ago.

1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
2. FIFA 17
3. Battlefield 1
4. Final Fantasy XV
5. Dead Rising 4
6. Watch Dogs 2
7. The Last Guardian
8. Pokemon Sun
9. Skyrim: Special Edition
10. Pokemon Moon

The Last Guardian outsells Shadow of the Colossus but fails to reach No.1 [GamesIndustry.biz]

The post The Last Guardian is selling decently in the UK appeared first on Destructoid.

Well, shit

When rumours first started surfacing about the prospect of a new and more powerful PlayStation 4 console, I couldn't help but be a little concerned. Des??pite the fact that this is a ta??ctic that's been employed by Nintendo in the past with both its handheld consoles and, to a lesser extent, the various expansions for devices such as the Nintendo 64, I've always been a little hesitant about mid-generational upgrades when looking at them from a pro-consumerist standpoint.

For instance, while many games perform reasonably well on both the original 3DS and the newer and more powerful console in its family, there are situations such as the one that occurred with the handheld port of Hyrule Warriors where some games simply do not run as expected on the older hardware. The biggest point of concern for me was of the possibility of something similar occurring with the?? PS4 ?Pro and the older, less-powerful machine.

Unfortunately, this looks to be the case with Team ICO's long-anticipated The Last Guardian.

According to Digital Foundry, The Last Guardian fluctuates wildly between 20 to 30 frames per second on the original PlayStation 4, which results in a game that simply does not feel smooth or fluid to play. To put it simply, playing The Last Guardian on the original PS4 is ?a sub-optimal way to experience it, which is a damn shame.

Things aren’t much improved on the PS4 Pro in its 4K mode, which suffers from similar issues, albeit nowhere near as heavily. For the most part, the framerate is much better than that of the base console’s, but there are a few moments where it?? actually performs worse than the less powerful hardware. Either way, performance is nowhere near optimal in this mode, which is a huge let-down.

Even more worryingly, PlayStation Universe reports that the The Last Guardian’s framerate can even dip below 10, although this was seemingly resolved by restarting the entire PS4 console.

In order to get achieve a mostly consistent framerate, you’ll need to play The Last Guardian in 1080p on a PS4 Pro. In this case, the game will render at that lower resolution, so it won’t look as nice as the 4K mode does, but the console will then be able to dedicate the rest of its resources to the game’s ove??rall performance, which in turn ensures that the game will run at a more stable 30 frames per second. This lower resolution mode on the PS?4 Pro will still suffer from the occasional dips, but they’re nowhere near as extreme as those encountered on the base console and on the Pro’s 4K mode.

To make things worse, The Last Guardian will not allow players to manually select what resolution they want to play the game in when it's actually running. You'll actually need to go into the console's settings and change the output resolution from there if you want to run the game in a different performance mode. This means that if you're an owner of a 4K TV, you'll be playing The Last Guardian wit??h significantly worse performance by default.&n?bsp;

I really and truly hope that both The Last Guardian’s framerate can be improved on both t?he original PS4 and the Pro’s 4K mode an?d that this sort of situation is the exception rather than the rule when going forward. If anything, I’d love it if the PS4 Pro’s more powerful hardware could just be relegated to being a rather nice -- but entirely optional -- extra, instead of something that’s going to be a mandatory purchase in order to play games at even 30 frames per second.

The last thing I want is for developers to neglect the older PS4 console in favour of the Pro, as it only harms the early adopters of Sony’s current-gen console and those who simply canno??t afford to upgrade to the new hardware.

Even though I was critical of the frame-pacing issues in Final Fantasy XV, it’s at least clear that Square Enix put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that the game runs at a nearly solid 30 frames per second on even the original PS4, with the Pro receiving some relatively minor-yet-welcome upgrades on top of that. Likewise, the soon-to-be-patched-in 60FPS mode for Final Fantasy XV that Square Enix is promising really does just seem like a nice upgrade that improves the PS4 Pro version of the game without adversely affecting owners of the older console. I’d love it if more developers could take inspiration from this, as it ensures tha??t every PS4 owner gets to play a perfectly functional game, while also giving Pro owners a superior experience.

The post If you want to play The Last Guardian at a reasonably stable framerate, you’ll need a PS4 Pro appeared first on Destructoid.

Hopefully not the last from Team Ico

How do you really prepare for a review for The Last Guardian? You can't.

I mean, you can try. I replayed ICO and Shadow of the Colossus once Guardian had a firm, really real relea??se date, to try to have a fresh frame of reference, but going into a game from Fumito Ueda, you re??????????????????????????ally need to be ready for anything.

The Last Guardian (PS4 [reviewed on a PS4 Pro])
Developer: SIE Japan Studio
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Release: December 6, 2016
MSRP: $59.99

_{[Like Team Ico's other games, it's best if you go in completely blind, so I'll avoid major story spoilers.]}

The Last Guardian is framed as an in-medias-res narrative from an old man, recalling his experiences, and strangely, there is very little mystery at first. The narrator notes that "he" (the boy protagonis??t) has awoken in a jail-like area, has strange tattoos he didn?'t have before, and is host to a companion in his cell, a creature called "Trico," who is initially hostile. It doesn't leave much room for interpretation, which is a relatively jarring way to start.

Because when it came to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, I was immediately left wondering what basically...everything was from star to finish. I still am in some ways, years later! It was an early red flag, but that concept of over-explanation was immediately shaken in the first 10 minutes or so. I realized that that initial area was basically serving as a tutorial for people who were maybe turned off by the recondite and mysterious past games. My fears were brief and unfounded. The Last Guardian is real, and it's good.

It's insane how organic Guardian is. It doesn't feel like a cookie-cutter puzzle platformer, and instead delivers on the promise of giving us an actual "adventure." If there's such a thing as the "companion genre," Team I??co has cornered the market. I appreciate that in this era of microtransactions and multiplayer-centric project, there's still room for something like this, tumultuous devel??opment cycle or not.

This is not a high-flying, frame-perfect action game for people who want to zip around with air dashes or dash cancels. This is more methodical, reactive. Trico is created to react like an artificial intelligence -- an AI of a mythological creature, even -- and won't always come or act on your command, especially at the start. You can jump, interact, crouch, call, and tackle/throw, all of which elicit actions from the boy, but not Trico. And these actions, mind, are all up to interpretation based on the context. Interaction can mean picking up an object, opening a door, climbing, as well as a dedicated "pet" button (aw). There might be only several actual solutions to a common problem, but with the way it's presented, it feels limitless.

Don't get too excited though, because if you haven't grown up with old-school 3D platformers, prepare to fight the controls a bit. They definitely feel archaic in many ways, like Last Guardian truly is a product of the?? PS3, or even PS2 era, but the juice is worth the squeeze. I mean, there are barely any options at the start either -- it's basically just some minor camera alterations. You're playing it the way Ueda and his team unabashedly intended it to be played (as an aside, I had no idea I had to mash buttons to turn a seemingly endless load screen into a five second one, so there's a tip for you!).

My only real problem is with the camera, strictly when it comes to the framing during in-game events. It almost ruins some poignant moments because it's so stringent and doesn't allow you to fully view the environment. This is in part due to how large Trico is, which is no doubt a deliberate design choice. But there are many cases wh?ere we get a cinematic view that zooms out or centers a bit, so it's just not consistent. This isn't normally an issue with puzzle solving or traversal, just exposition, so it's not a big knock, just something to consider. Same goes for the noticeable pop-in with outdoor areas.

As old as it feels at times, I can see why it took 10 years just based on the animations alone. The boy and Trico are emotive in a way that most developers wouldn't even attempt. If you cried at the end of either Fellowship of the Ring or Return of the King, expect your tear ducts to work overtime. That's not necessarily a take on any big ??event t?hat happens, just little things that feel genuine.

There's also a tantalizing inherent fear to not having Trico around, if you have to crawl into a cave and part with it for even a moment. As a pet owner for roughly half my life (cats and a dog), I can definitely relate to that separation anxiety. Plus, just like real pets, they'l?l piss you off from time to time and not listen. It's even more impressive when you see all of the effort that went into making Trico a part of your journey (from a visual and audio perspective), drilling down to minute details like how he'd feasibly cross over into new areas. You're not dragging him along like a chore, he's with you the whole way.

Like Team Ico's past work, talking about The Last Guardian too much inherently drifts into spoiler territory,?? but we have years to unpack this. F?or now, I'm confident in saying that although it isn't their best work, there really aren't too many directors out there like Fumito Ueda, and I hope for our sake, he continues making games.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: The Last Guardian appeared first on Destructoid.

Acknowledgement that it 'took longer than anyone expected'

The Last Guardian has had one of the most tumultuous development cycles in recent memory. It started development in 2007 before its announcement as a PlayStation 3 title at E3 in 2009. It was delayed repeatedly before shifting to the next generation of consoles, reintroduced for the PS4 at Sony's E3 press conference in 2015. Apparently, the PS3's hardware was insufficient to run The Last Guardian at a reasonable framerate. Before the shift, the game's director, Fumito Ueda, left Sony. Shortly after, the rest of The Last Guardian's developers, Team ICO, went silent, leading some to think the game had been cancelled. Even the PS4 version has been delayed repeatedly, but it looks as though it's finally, really coming out next week.

With all of that baggage attached, The Last Guardian has a lot of expectations to live up to. It's hard to work on anything for so many years without becoming attached, and it appears as though Mr. Ueda realizes that many people have been looking forward to The Last Guardian for a very long time. That's why the media kit for the game included a letter to fans who've had no choice but to wait patiently, posted first by Eurogamer:

In case you can't read the message, the full text is posted after the break. The letter mentions Ueda's "relief" that the project is finished, as well as the many "twists and turns" that have come between The Last Guardian's inception and the finished product.?? Ueda's message closes with a sketch of Trico, the titular Guardian.

Dear Adventurers

It's been a long time coming, but I take great pleasure (and relief!) in knowing that The Last Guardian is in your hands.

When we first began work on The Last Guardian, I intended it to take from and build on our experience working in ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, making it something akin to a greatest hits album. Unfortunately, as you know, we ran into a few twists and turns along the way, and the title took longer than anyone expected. Still, just as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are truly unique games, so too is The Last Guardian an experience unlike any other.

As you play, take the time to stop and enjoy the scenery as you follow these u??nl??ikely companions on their journey. And you definitely won't want to miss the ending!

The development team an??d I hope you all have a wonderful time with The Last Guardian. Nothing would make us happier.

Fumito Ueda

The Last Gu?ardian med?ia kit includes a heartfelt message from creator Fumito Ueda [Eurogamer]

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Oh, yeah, for sure, dude

This isn't spoilers for me, because I've already played through this bit, but this Japanese The Last Guardian promotional trailer condenses (quite a bit!) the intro into about six minutes, then includes some extra cool shit with evil terracotta-ass motherfuckers and some birddog-on-birddog action, all to a track that sounds ripped from Ni no Kuni. The Last Guardian is coming out, totally for real and everything, December 6.  For a much quicker briefing, check this very pretty CG trailer.

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Clifford's here to save the day

[Mid-game spoiler warning for Ico.?? If you haven't played it yet I suggest you ski??p the next three paragraphs, past the first image so as not to ruin a great moment.]

Everyone talks about how moving the endings of both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are, along with a few other emotional scenes. While I do concede that SOTC is the better overall game, the scene that really hit me like a sack of rice occurred about mid-way through Ico at a broken bridge much like in this trailer for The Last Guardian.

The whole game you must lead Yorda through the castle complex by holding her hand by keeping a button pressed, as well as direct her limited movement all the while constantly protecting her from various enemies. She never helps or does anything, but Ico's determination is unfailing. It is only when a bridge is destroyed and Ico is about to fall to his doom when Yorda finally reaches out her hand to save him, finally reciprocating all the c?are (and love?)?? he has done for her.

Besides the obvious implication of having someone finally show they appreciate all you do for them and reciprocate that love, it could be expanded to have various meanings. Not as lovers or friends, but as parents putting their heart and soul into providing for their children while expecting nothing in return, then eventually having the favor returned when the kids grow up, realize, and appreciate what has been done for them. More broadly it could stand to show that with enough hard work and dedication, eventually you'll break through. None of these are a stretc??h. Art is not about what meaning, if any, the artist puts into something, but what you take out of it.

Director Fumito Ueda would agree, remarking that (on whether or not Last Guardian is in the same universe as the previous titles) “The way I see it, maybe they are from the same world, or the same universe. But anything further than that is reall??y up to the player’s imagination. Everyone has a different level of relationship with the two previous titles, so we wouldn’t dictate that it is or it isn’t. It’s up to the player.”

While Ueda admits they didn't do everything they could have in the same way they didn't accomplish everything they set out to do with the previous games, they seem to have put a lot of passion and energy into this one, particularly with regard to the large griffin-like chimera called Trico, citing emotional experience rather than scientific research: "When I was younger, I grew up in a home that had a bunch of animals. My experiences with them are great memories that I still have...But it’s really all based on my childhood memories, the way I interacted with the animals, the way they reacted to me.” Ueda and company want the players to feel as if Trico is real and alive, reaffirming "at the end of playing through the game, if the player feels the existence of Trico, like it’s really there, then we have accomplished what we set out to do.&rdqu??o;

When asked about "expanding the appeal of video games," Ueda thinks there should be less barriers to entry on the grounds of skill. He's quick to defend himself on that statement though, stating " I’m not saying that games need to be easy or casual or anything like that." He mentions arcade games are limited by a certain amount of time or lives, but contrasts that with console games, "there’s no need to put a time limit or game over screen — we want people to play longer. But again??, whether it’s skill requirements, or continuous challenges until you feel like giving up… if they felt slightly more accessible, then maybe more people would enjoy playing video games."

The Last Guardian: New CG Trailer, Q&A [PlayStation Blog]

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PS4 Pro patch detailed

The Last Guardian has been a running joke for the last five or so years. Team ICO announced the title in 2009 and the game vanished more than a few times since. People began to wonder if we would ever see the title, which then resurfaced at E3 this year (before being delayed until December).

Now, with the PS4 Pro being a device, I guess the next question was whether or not this former PS3 exclusive would take advantage of the new consoles features. Well, fear not all 10% of you with a 4K television, because The Last Guardian will definitely support 4K upscaling.

Along with that and the requisite HDR support (which doesn't require a PS4 Pro), The Last Guardian is also going to have some minor performance enhancements, at least according to Eurogamer. I suppose you might as well, at this point; the game has been delayed for so long, people are probably not going to enjoy it anyway. Why not let? the less?? frugal among us get smoother gameplay?

The Last Guardian is getting PS4 Pro support [Eurogamer]

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I guess this means it is actually releasing soon

Everyone's favorite YouTuber PewDiePie has what appears to be exclusive access to an early version of The Last Guardian. He has posted the first 20 minutes or so on his channel, though around half of it is gameplay that has alr??e?ady been shown off before. 

I've never thought this game looks all that great, and after watching the video, I'm not convinced otherwise. To me it looks like a majority of it is slowly walking around carrying heavy objects, slowly climbing ladders and chains, and occasionally having your dog bird thing do something. Without the "thing I'd like to pet," this seems like a snoozefest, but I hope for all the fans who have been waiting that isn't the case.

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It should still be out before Half-Life 3

It looks like the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive game, The Last Guardian, has been delayed yet again. While it was announced earlier this year that the game would finally be released on October 25, it appears as if it has hit yet another roadbloc?k in its long deve?lopment cycle.

According to Shuhei Yoshida, the development team has "...encountered more bugs than anticipated while in the final stages of development" and simply needed more time in order to ensure that the?? final product was up to an acceptable standard of quality.

The Last Guardian is now set for release on December 6. Feel free to?? check out the t??railer below:

An Update on The Last Guardian [PlayStation Blog]

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Hands-on preview with The Last Guardian

The years-long layup leading up to The Last Guardian's release has been, Oh I just fucking know the cute dog/bird/animal thing is going to die. The death of a beloved animal pal is an easy emotional trigger that can easily backfire if done badly, but Team ICO doesn't make bad games. At the same time, unless that potential Old Yeller moment is incredibly hard-won, it'??s probably a bolder move to try to equal that theoretical emotional resonance in a less easy, less expected wa?y.

I don't know how it's going to end, but I do know that The Last Guardian is real. I mean really real. This isn't just a surprise trailer, the form it appeared in at last E3. This year it got a release date and? I actually got to play it. And seven years later I'm still picking up what Fumito Ueda is throwing down.

I played what might be The Last Guardian's first 45 minutes or so, none of whi??ch included the live gameplay that was demonstrated at E3 2015.

There's an artful opening set to light music that cuts between and pans over taxonomical drawings of animals -- bats, types of flies -- with what might be their scientific names. It feels like something out of a Jules Verne novel. The black sketches on white paper soon give way to intrigue, though, as classic fantastical creatures like the phoenix or gryphon follow the more familiar. The sequence ends on a drawing of The Last Guardian's Trico, with the word "Trico."

Ahead of that is a short scene: a close-up on some gleaming object partially unearthed in the dirt. You can hear children playing in the background. The game properly opens up with the boy mysteriously waking?? up next to a chained-up, spear-pocked Trico.

The boy you play as serves as narrator here, but as an old man recounting the tale of the game in retrospect. He notes that the tattoos all over his body were not there before, just as unexplained as his ending up there. He does have tertiary knowledge of Trico, though, a "great man-eating be??ast" talked about in hushed tones by his elders.

Trico is wary of the boy to begin. It hisses and recoils. Climbing up on the beast (R1 to grip, triangle to jump; it feels like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus), the boy removes one spear and get??s knocked out as Trico bucks and cries in pain. And I have to give an extra nod to the fantastic animation work, from the boy's high-stepping stairs walk we talked about last year, to the realistic scramble he does when jolting away fr?om off the floor. He moves around like a proper kid with goofy extremities that are still  growing.

The game quietly takes its time building this relationship, though if you dawdle too long, th??e narrator will chime in as if he were recounting a stor?y, but it amounts to a gameplay hint, e.g. feed the poor pup some grub to get things moving and get him more trusting of the boy.

A bit later on, the boy worms his way through a vertical crevasse and ends up in a strange, circular, blue-ish white room with an ankle-deep pool in the middle. At the other end is an alcove with some kind of stone structure in the floor -- it looked vaguely human shaped, like a sarcophagus, but bigger. I was thinking ceremoni??al grave. At the head is a mirror that looks to be the same gleam??ing object that opened the game.

The boy? holds it like a buckler and can use it to create a beam of concentrated green light. As I made my way back to Trico, this spartan room absent further plunder, I learned the point of the light: Trico will shoot a magenta bolt of lightning from its tail, which has puzzle applications as you try and figure out how to get out of this place. It's also the most direct control you have ove??r Trico

No combat in the 45 minutes or so I played and nothing else too new. It ends on the boy crawling out of the mysterious ruins and bidding Trico adieu until Trico jumps a few stories out of a large hole in the top of the structure and the two look out at the expansive, austere land. It feels like a seamless extension of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus despite the huge gap.

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Good lord, finally

Sony's long-awaited The Last Guardian is launching on October 25, 2016.

When it finally arrives, it will have been nearly a decade since Team Ico began development on the game in 2007. After its reveal at E3 2009, The Last Guardian was the subject of a number of delays. This lengthy developmen??t cycle, along ?with Sony's general radio silence regarding the game, caused many to wonder if the game had been cancelled or if it would ever see release.

Then The Last Guardian re-emerged at E3 last year, when it was also revealed that Sony had transferred development over to GenDesign, the new independent studio headed up by Ico and Shadow of the Colossus director Fumito Ueda a??nd staffed by other members of those games' development teams.

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That boy ain't right

It's not just Gravity Rush 2. IGN has (part one of!) another exclusive to end this week, this time the fabled The Last Guardian which is certainly, definitely coming out this year. It's hands-on with the first 45 minutes, mind, and doesn't seem dissimilar from what we've seen so far (mostly at E3 last year in t??he game's half-surprising resurgence).

But it does show off our tatted-up boy swimming, which pretty immediately threw me back to Shadow of the Colossus and how much the Leviathan fucked me up/paralyzed me with fear. It was my Jaws. And then, finally braving the water and seeing the fucker come up towards you and realize shitty PS2 draw distance is why it looked so small swimming around down there but no holy shit it's fucking huge oh my god help me.

I am still jazzed as hell for this game.

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The boy who cried Guardian

Holy hell that Last Guardian footage was something right? We all laughed, cried, and collectively became excited. Then it was delayed into oblivion, ??and put into development hell despite the fact that we were reassured every six months that it was "still real" and "still coming." And here's another one of those, this time from Edge Magazine. 

In Edge's latest issue, out today, new gameplay details have been shared, but most notably -- a 2016 window has been confirmed. It comes s?traight from director Fumito Ueda's mouth: Since this is the y??ear we will see the game's release, I do have some worries, but I'm also very excited." This year? You don't say.

The boy protagonist also sports a "mirrored shield that can be aimed at surfaces," and Trico, the titular beast, can "fire a devastation beam of red lightning from his ta?il," which can be used in tandem with the shield. I can see some pretty amazing puzzles based on that concept for sure -- especially since the creature "disregards your attempts to tame it." Ueda is steadfast in that he doesn't want you to completely control it, saying that he's "had enough" of that, and that it will have its "own desires." To this end, its role will be "ambiguous" and not necessarily helpful all the time (cool, cool).

I know when people ??have been waiting for a game so long that they have the "I don't care anymore" m?entality, but whenever this comes out I will be on it immediately. If Sony is willing to commit to a 2016 release like this, we can probably expect something at E3.

Edge [Twitter via IB Times]

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'We don't want to show too much'

Sony gave us a look at the long-awaited The Last Guardian at E3 -- just enough to whet our appetite. Confirming that "Yes, it definitely still exists," we were shown seven minutes of boy palling around with bird-dog-thing. It wasn't meaningful outside of the context of, again, "Yes it de?finitely still exists."?? That was all by design.

In an interview with GameSpot, PlayStation head Shuhei Yoshida said that Sony's intentionally withholding footage because of the nature of the game. "Development is going well, but because it's all about the story, we don't want to show too much," Yoshida remarked. He continued "We wanted to show that it exists, it wo?rks, it runs. It's not like we won't show anything before launch, but I think we will try to limit what we show about the game."

That's not much of a departure from the past several years. At this point, we've been conditioned to not expect to see footage of The Last Guardian. That's why when Tokyo Game Show and Paris Games Week go by without any n??ews, it's pret??ty easy to accept -- even if we all just want to see some more running, jumping, and climbing with bird-dog-thing.

Last Gu??ard?ian Footage Purposefully Being Held Back, Here's Why [GameSpot]

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Not quite 'playable'

【TGS2015】→→ A life-size Trico, controlled by the same AI system as in the game, is waiting you. pic.twitter.com/ORtaRRYMBN

— genDESIGN (@genDESIGN_Inc) September 16, 2015

After The Last Gaurdian's modest resurrection at E3 2015, quiet. Understandably, some people are unsure about the veracity of the thing, strung along for so long. Team ICO's new company, Gen Design, tweeted about the PS4 game's presence at Tokyo Game Show 2015, and it's a bit d??ifferent. It's a virtual pet. (There also seems to be a separate theater screening, likely of the same E3 demo)

I'm going to go play with it soon; we're just getting off th?e train out to the TGS convention center.

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Plus the blurriest screenshot ever

Sony has been worryingly quiet about The Last Guardian since E3. It wasn&?rsquo;t at gamescom, it wasn’t at PAX, and it hasn’t been announced for EGX.

But then Fumito Ueda’s studio genDESIGN descended from the sky to rally our spirits and continue trudging along in this dreary world without The Last Guardian. In ot?her words, it ??tweeted it's going to be at the Tokyo Game Show this week:

We are thinking about how to take Trico to the Makuhari ( in a new and different way). pic.twitter.com/Z1IKxPkOtF

— genDESIGN (@genDESIGN_Inc) September 11, 2015

Makuhari Messe is the convention center j??ust outside of Tokyo, where TGS will be held September 17-20. Expect a deluge of new information about the game this weekend.

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Mark Cerny rumor 'totally bogus'

Ah, so here's a thing. Director Fumito Ueda just gave an interview with Game Informer where he put the delay on "a corporate decision by Sony" and not just technical issue??s. "There are always delays in production, as you know. Technical being one of them, but there were many others that were out of my control as well," he said. "I proba??bly wou?ld have been comfortable with the end result ... The PS3 was not restricting me from doing something."

On the other hand, the always affable Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony's Worldwide Studios, when asked by Eurogamer about the technical challenge of originally getting The Last Guardian to run on PS3, said, "And simply, we failed! ??We decided, no, we cannot make it. The trailer that we showed at E3 2009 was speeded up. It was from the development system but we took it frame by frame and made it run smoothly."

He explained that this PS4 version is indeed the same original vision, "Because of the technical difficulty, running the game at the frame-rate required that the team look to compromise some features - the number of characters that Ueda-san wanted to do - if we were to continue on PS3. But because we moved to PS4, now he can make what he wanted. So people say it looks like the same game - there's a re??ason!"

Yoshida also explained the work flow and what we thought was Ueda's new company, Gen Design. "Gen Design is a small studio created by [Jinji] Horagai-san, he's the lead programmer of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Ueda-san is independent. So Ueda-san and Gen Design and Japan Studios are three groups working as one team. Gen Designs guys include some lead animators from Shadow of the Colossus and some character designers, so that veteran team creates lots of the creative side of content for the Japan Studio team to implement. Ueda-san does the overall direction of the game design, art direction and animati?on."

Then there was some rumor stomping. The Last Guardian isn't costing a fortune. "No, no, not at all," he said. "The team is much smaller. Teams in Japan are much smaller in general than teams in the US and Europe... Horizon is a much bigger budget title than The Last Guardian! It's not so small, it's much bigger than Ico or Shadow of the Colossus, but it's not a US or European-style budget."

And PS4 architect Mark Cerny having took over the project? "[T]hat's totally bogus," Yoshida said. "He's been giving advice and consultation to many first-party projects...The Last Guardian team is one of them. Because it was a technical issue that made the project so long, he and other central tech groups that we have, many smart people, helped Japan Studio to re-engineer and test i??t."

Shuhei Yoshida on saving The Last Guardian and PS4 i??n Japan [Eurogamer]

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It was fine on PS3, even finer on PS4?

The Last Guardian dropped off the face of the earth for a few years, didn’t it? Well, turns out that may have been less Team ICO’s Fumito Ueda’s decision and ??more due to behind the scenes decisions at Sony.

In a lengthy interview with Game Informer, Ueda is poked numero??us times as to the decision to move development over to the PlayStation 4, despite originally being announ??ced for PlayStation 3.

In the interview, Ueda hint??s at more than simply technical reasons being behind the delay:

There are always delays in production, as you know. Technical being one of them, but there were many others that were out of my control as well.

Ueda also mentioned that he believed he’d have been happy with the PS3 version of The Last Guardian, and the technical issues or the quality of the game were never doubte?d by th?e team:

I probably would have been comfortable with the end result – originally, this game was designed for PS3. Assuming that all of the game architecture and all of the game design was suited to deliver the experience I envisioned, given those assumptions I think it would have been a good product… The PS3 was not restricting me from doing something.

Eventually, Game Informer out??right asked Ueda about his evasiveness on the topic, and got this interesting response:

It was pretty much a corporate decision by Sony. And that's where we'll leave it. [laughs] Sorry.

So there we have it: for some reason beyond our understanding, Sony held back The Last Guardian. It seems interesting that Sony would push one of its seemingly most anticipated games to over a year after their newest ?console&?rsquo;s debut. But at least we now know who to blame.

The Last Guardian's Long Journey: An Interview With ?Fumito Ueda [Game Informer]

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Timeless

I had a chance to get another, slightly extended look The Last Guardian demoed by creative director Fumito Ueda himself. Ueda left Sony in 2011, though it was said he remained on in a contract capacity. Ueda explained the game was in development between Sony Japan Studio and his new company, genDESIGN, which has a nifty little website up here?. genDESIGN is largely comprised of former Team ICO staff.

The demo, which Ueda was playing live on a PlayStation 4 dev kit, started a few minutes earlier than the E3 trailer. The boy -- who has been "??kidnapped un??der mysterious circumstances" -- walks over to a sleeping Trico (the catbirddog), climbs up and pulls some spears out from his hind eliciting cries.

From there the boy tossed wooden barrels at Trico, who happily ate them and eventually stretched up to a high perch, at which point the boy climbed his ?feathers and was able to access a previously gated area. After some whining, the boy opens a gate and the two both head outside, to the start of the E3 demo.

Ueda didn't dish much while playing. It was as if time froze and the last few years of absence didn'??t exist. You'll have to "utilize the strengths and weaknesses of each of the characters," he said. That is dealing with Trico's animal nature, which can't be directly player-controlled, and the boy's limited ??physical abilities.

Of course there was stuff already shown off in the trailer. The boy's delightful high-step running animation, along with a slow, adorable creep walk I didn't see yesterday. I also noticed for the first time what looks like a blue orb at the end of Trico's tail. And that second slow-??motion jump where the boy grabs Trico's tail? Ueda fell to his death and respawned at right before the purple windmill thing got pushed down, so it's not a cutscene, you'll still have to make the grab.

That fall was emblematic of the sense of height and depth Ueda likes to instill in his games. Trico serves as something of a "safety net?" to help keep the boy safe, "overcome the psychological stress" of the fraught architecture.

"ICO...was about the cooperation of the boy and Yorda," while Shadow of the Colossus was "about the dynamic interaction" between Wander and the monsters. The Last Guardian is the "best of both worlds," as if Shadow of the Colossus isn't a decade old. I kind of appreciate that lack as lip service paid to the lengthy development, however interesting a behind the scenes story it may be. George Miller just came back and made a new Mad Max after 30 years. Ten ain't shit.

I'll likely have a pleasant time playing The Last Guardian next year, without ma??????????????????????????d hype or pent up disappointment. I hope Ueda manages to realize his vision after all the rigamarole, because his last two games are fabulous.

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Hello from 2010

The Last Guardian, originally a PlayStation 3 exclusive announced at E3 2009, has made an appearance at Sony's co??nference tonight.

The third game from Team ICO (Shadow of the Colossus) has been in a developmental limbo for ages. Director Fumito Ueda left Sony in 2011, though it was said he remained on in a contract capacity --? he was in attendance in the audience, too.

The boy has a sick ass high step walking down stairs animation, there's slow motion cavern jumping, purple windmills, and Shadow of the Colossus ?style climbing on the beast pal's fur/feather?s. It lives!

Also, 2016 release date!

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Good lord, not this again...

Apparently The Last Guardian will be at E3 next week. I wouldn't hold your breath, though.

"We have it on very good authority that this will be the year that Team Ico finally presents its follow-up to much loved classics Ico and Shadow of the Colossus," The Guardian reports.

I'll believe it when I see it. After spending the better part of a decade getting worked up over every shad??ow, ?whisper, or puff of smoke surrounding this game, it might just be better to assume it's never going to happen and just be pleasantly surprised if and when it ever does.

E3 2015 – our 15 most anticipated games [The Guardian]

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Keep holding your breath

The sly detectives over on NeoGAF have discovered that Sony has renewed the trademark for The Last Guardian after an administrative error let it expire previously. So keep holding your breath, fans -- you may very well get the game after years of development hell?.

Way back in 2011 GameStop said it was canceled, but Sony continued to insist The Last Guardian was still coming. I'd imagine it will eventually, otherwise Sony wouldn't waste money on renewing the tradem??ark, but will it ever live up to the expectations of fans who have been waiting?? for what seems like forever?

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