Writing on the PlayStation Blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment president Shuhei Yoshida revealed that the teams at Japan Studio and GenDesign have run into a number of bugs that have slowed the development process, and Sony does not want to release the game in its current state, lest it fails to meet expectations.
“Fumito Ueda, GenDesign, and Japan Studio have a wonderful vision for The Last Guardian‘s touching, emotional journey of friendship and trust, and we want to deliver the most polished experience possible for our fans who have supported us for so long,” Yoshida adds. “Our development continues to push itself to the fullest and we look forward to revealing new content toward launch.”
Hands On: The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian, Fumito Ueda’s long-in-development adventure, is a spiritual successor to both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, with an emphasis on the bond between a young boy and his flying companion Trico. It was shown off at E3 2009 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, and its more recent gameplay appears strikingly similar.
In 2012, after missing its 2011 release window and being firmly placed in “development hell,” Yoshida revealed that the development team had run into significant technical issues with The Last Guardian and that they were “much harder to solve” than originally thought. At the time, he remained adamant that the game was a PlayStation 3 exclusive. Its cancellation was erroneously reported a few years later, and Yoshida admitted that Sony would likely have canceled the game completely if fan interest had not remained so high for so long.
The Last Guardian now hits PlayStation 4 on December 6.
