The head of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SIE WWS) expressed confidence that The Last Guardian will live up to expectations.
Speaking during an interview with Gameswelt.TV, Shuhei Yoshida also noted that development on the ambitious action-adventure title never stopped despite its well-publicised technical issues, which resulted in it skipping a console generation.
"No, I’m not worried. I have confidence in the team and Ueda-san’s vision. We are so excited to be able to finally play this game that needed to be out, and lots of people are waiting. I expect people will enjoy when it comes out,” said Yoshida-san.
"It was always in development," he revealed, "and it took longer, especially when we made the decision to move from PS3 to PS4. Lots of engineering had to be redone from scratch so that was contributed to the length of the project.
"But now the team is very excited to be able to show a little bit of the game but we don’t want to spoil the story so we are not going to show too much until the game comes out. But when the game comes out we want people to really enjoy [it]."
The Last Guardian finally gets release date after problematic development history
The Last Guardian was announced back in 2009 during Sony’s E3 press conference, and later showed up at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show, where Sony confirmed a holiday 2011 release window.
Despite this, the game was later delayed alongside the then-unreleased Shadow of the Colossus/ICO Collection due to various technical difficulties. In late 2011, it was announced creator Fumito Ueda had departed Sony and was working on the game in a freelance capacity.
Few updates were provided over the next few years, with The Last Guardian conspicuously absent from trade shows such as E3, Gamescom and the Tokyo Game Show. Former Sony America boss Jack Tretton even suggested the game was put on hiatus, something which Yoshida-san quickly denied.
Fast-forward to E3 2015, and Ueda-san’s long-elusive project was finally re-revealed for the PS4, where it was given a 2016 launch window. At last week’s E3 2016, a new trailer confirmed an October 25, 2016 launch date.