SCE Japan Studio continues to toil away on The Last Guardian, but the project isn’t the firm’s top priority at the moment. That’s according to former Team Ico boss Fumito Ueda, who no longer works for Sony but remains attached to the project as a producer.
In a new interview with Famitsu, translated by Polygon, Ueda said of the long-delayed game: “It’s under earnest development. However, SCE Japan Studio, who’s working on The Last Guardian, also has titles like Puppeteer and Knack. Those are taking priority right now.”
In a separate interview, SCE Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida gave CVG a status update on the game: “Yeah we are still making it,” he said. “So we are still waiting for the right time to announce it. To re-announce it.” Pressed on whether the title will now release on PS4, Yoshida replied. “So, we have decided not to discuss this yet.”
Little has been seen of The Last Guardian since it was announced at E3 2009 for release on PS3 in holiday 2011. Game director Ueda later said it had been delayed beyond 2011 “to provide more challenging and better quality of content to users”.
Ueda left Sony in December 2011, but he continues to work on the project as an independent contractor. In February, Ueda said the game remained under his creative supervision.
In June, we listed The Last Guardian as one of 6 games we expect never to see the light of day, when we noted: “If recent rumors are true, The Last Guardian has been rebuilt as a PS4 game following multiple project restarts. But if it’s absent at E3 2013, we’re convinced it’ll never see the light of day.”