Unbelievably, after nearly eight years The Last Guardian is actually happening. For real. Not like a joke or anything. Although, talking to Edge, Sony Computer Entertainment president Shuhei Yoshida admits, "If everyone stopped asking about it, probably we would have [cancelled it]".
The Last Guardian revealed a game that looked a lot like the well worn footage last seen on PS3, and for good reason. It kind of is the PS3 game, just reengineered to run on PS4. "We completely rebuilt the game in terms of the technical side," explains Shu, adding, unsurprisingly, that it was "really, really tough". That's where PS4 lead architect Mark Cerny has been able to lend a hand, "Mark is giving advice, as he does to many firstparty projects. Because the tech issue was a big one, Mark is helping a lot and giving good advice, but it’s not like Mark took over the project".
However, while the move was a challenge it's something Shu believes the game needed: "The PS3 code was very optimised for PS3 and it took lots of effort, but still the game didn’t reach the performance it needed, and features were missing. It was clear the game design had to be compromised to make it work on PS3, and PS4 was coming, so we decided to do it on PS4. And it took a long time to rebuild it on PS4, but now we have the tech foundations and toolset and the team".
It's that satisfaction with the game's progress that finally lead to its reveal this year. "The game is in good shape," states Shu, adding, "the reason we’ve shown it at this E3 is we have good confidence in the way development is going". So, after eight years, two consoles and a complete rebuild, the bird cat dog thing is finally on the way in 2016.
You can read the full interview with Shuhei Yoshida, doubled with an interview with Xbox's Phil Spencer and loads of post-E3 content in the new issue of Edge out on Friday the 3rd of July, with Dark Souls 3 on the cover. You can download ithereorsubscribeto future issues.
