PSU Community: How badly does Fumito Ueda leaving Sony affect The Last Guardian?

A few days ago, news broke that Fumito Ueda, creator of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, had left Sony for good. A roar of shock and disarray reverberated throughout the internet, and most prominently, here in the PSU forums.

One question is on everyone’s mind: what is to become of his upcoming work-in-progress, The Last Guardian? Ueda has confirmed that he will still be contractually bound to the project to see it through to completion, but will then take his leave.

However, the hustle and bustle in our community grew strong, as some PlayStation enthusiasts had their respective takes on the situation:

Yuuichi - We will never truly know why. This guy was with Sony for a long time, and a major part of Team ICO. Him leaving is like Payton Manning leaving the Colts, Mario leaving Luigi, or Kratos suddenly popping up on an Xbox console. Last Guardian will get finished, and it will probably still be good. However I can not see Team Ico staying together after it.

Bold words, but not everyone has abandoned hope.

Unicron7 - It will release in 2012 as scheduled. You'll see no unnecessary drama coming from me. This is being blown out of proportion by a small few. Yeah, and I also know they have been working on it the last 3-4 years. Them leaving at this stage in development is irrelevant if you ask me. I also reiterate that the head man is still working on the title, he is just officially gone from Sony. Mountains out of molehills and a lot of wishful thinking. 

Bigdoggy - I just wandered into this topic and after reading it, am I the only one that doesn't give a crap if the guy leaves? I mean seriously, looking at this guys background, why do some of you make just a huge deal out of it. So he was behind SotC and ICO, okay the year gap between now and then is huge. Don't mean to sound harsh, but yea, I'm still sleeping just as good.

Good points, however, some disagree that his departure is insignificant. This is, at the end of the day, the mind behind one of the most esteemed PlayStation 2 games; Shadow of the Colossus.

But where does Team ICO go from here? How does a loss of this magnitude affect the studio's future?

FonFahbre - Capcom lost a few talented people and look at what's happened to them; They have become nothing but a joke to the industry. Just one ambitious and talented individual can completely throw off a project/studio

We’ll see. The bottom line is that we don’t think The Last Guardian will suffer from this at all. Sure, team morale can be important, but the project is too far along to be derailed (HEY!) from its initial direction. What we don’t know is what the future of Team ICO will be like. Can the company subsist without the visionary that put them on the grid in the first place?

We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Oh, I almost forgot! “Best Troll of Thread” goes to:

Sub-stance1 - Maybe he will end up at Microsoft...lol