Shuhei Yoshida talked about the game's troubled development.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
The Last Guardian's journey to release was full of challenges. Announced in 2009, it was first planned to launch in 2011 for the PlayStation 3. However, its publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment decided to move the title to PlayStation 4, and eventually, it was out only in 2016.
Shuhei Yoshida, former President of SIE Worldwide Studios, shared the tale of The Last Guardian's troubled 11-year development during an interview with IGN Japan. According to the game news provider Genki's translation, the game had some technical issues that led to its delay.
The Last Guardian's director Fumito Ueda had a certain vision, and he wanted Trico to move realistically, which was hard for PS3: it just "couldn't handle the large character in the environments and it was running at around 10-15 FPS." Because of this, the game was moved to PS4, and all the programming was redone.
Shuhei said that if it had another publisher, the game would have probably been canceled, but he thought Ueda's vision was wonderful, so he "decided, 'whatever happens, we have to release it!' and kept on saying to everyone, 'let's do our best!' to get it done."
Thanks to his efforts, we have an incredible story that has left a significant impression on many players, even if it arrived later than planned. Now, The Last Guardian has an 82 Metascore and an 8.0 User Score on Metacritic, with fans praising its beautiful story.
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