Former Team ICO boss Fumito Ueda has said the release of The Last Guardian is beyond his control, though apologized for keeping fans waiting such a long time for the PlayStation 3-exclusive adventure.
Ueda-san made the comments while reflecting on the past eight years of his career with Edge.
“Putting aside the short-term output, more than anything I feel terribly sorry that for various reasons I have kept my audience waiting for such a long time," he said.
“Maintaining motivation is all about producing something great. A hobby or alcohol might help to refresh you temporarily, but they won’t motivate creativity. Also, the original staff members on Ico and SOTC are just as fussy over details as I am. I always want to create quickly, and I always want to increase the rate of production. In the case of The Last Guardian, my creative work was mostly finished a long time ago, but the details of when, where and how it will be completed are beyond my control.”
Ueda-san has been working in a freelance capacity on The Last Guardian since December 2011. On his decision to leave the company, he commented: “It was not easy,” adding, “but I can’t go into the details just yet. It will be good to be able to discuss it along with a post-mortem of The Last Guardian someday.”
Intriguingly, he hinted of a “secret” projects currently in the works, but was unable to go into any further details.
The Last Guardian was announced at E3 2009 and has made sporadic trade show appearances since. The game was originally scheduled to ship in holiday 2011, though it was later pushed back and has yet to see the light of day.
Speculation has been rife that the game has been moved to PlayStation 4, though Sony has yet to confirm this and insists it is still on track for PS3.
Stay tuned to PSU.com for more details.