The Last Guardian is a 2016 action-adventure game made by Japan Studio and GenDesign and released by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Players control a boy who makes friends with a large, legendary creature named Trico. Together, they must work to escape the dangerous ruins of an ancient civilization.
Team Ico started creating The Last Guardian in 2007. Fumito Ueda designed and directed the game. It has similar art style, themes, and gameplay to his earlier games, Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005). Ueda used the "design through subtraction" method he had used before, removing parts that did not help the main idea of the boy and Trico’s connection.
Sony introduced The Last Guardian at E3 2009, planning to release it in 2011 for the PlayStation 3. The game had many delays. Ueda and other Team Ico members left Sony to form GenDesign. Technical problems moved the game to the PlayStation 4 in 2012, causing people to guess it might never be released. Ueda and GenDesign stayed as creative advisors, with Ueda as director and Sony’s Japan Studio handling technical work. The Last Guardian was shown again at E3 2015. When it was released, it was praised for its art style, story, and how Trico was shown. However, some people criticized the gameplay.
Gameplay
The Last Guardian is a third-person video game that includes action-adventure and puzzle elements. It is similar to earlier games, Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005). In the game, the player controls an unnamed boy who works with a creature named Trico. Trico is part bird and part mammal. The name Trico can mean "prisoner" in Japanese, "baby bird," or a mix of the words for "bird" and "cat."
The boy can climb structures, carry objects like barrels, and use mechanisms such as levers. Trico is large and quick, allowing it to reach places the boy cannot and protect him from enemies. However, some obstacles, like gates or glass eyes that scare Trico, stop it from moving forward. The boy must remove these obstacles. The boy also needs to feed Trico when it is hungry, calm it after battles, and take away spears thrown at it by enemies.
At first, the boy has limited control over Trico. As the game progresses, he learns to guide Trico to jump to high places or move in specific directions. Sometimes, letting Trico explore on its own helps the boy discover new areas. In some parts of the game, the boy uses a reflective mirror to summon lightning from Trico’s tail. This lightning can break certain objects.
If the boy is captured by guards or falls from a great height, the game returns him to the last checkpoint he reached. Playing the game multiple times unlocks extra costumes inspired by earlier games created by the same developer, Fumito Ueda.
Plot
The story of The Last Guardian is told as a memory shared by an older man (voiced by Hiroshi Shirokuma). He recalls his childhood experiences in a broken castle located in a deep valley called the Nest. A boy (voiced by Tatsuki Ishikawa) wakes up in the ruined castle and finds a large, injured creature named Trico, which is chained and hurt. Although Trico is at first angry, the boy helps by removing spears from its body and feeding it. Trico then begins to trust the boy. Together, they free Trico and explore the area, discovering a mirror-like shield that creates lightning-like energy from Trico's tail. The boy and Trico travel through the castle ruins, avoiding ghostly soldiers, while Trico's broken horns and wings slowly heal.
In a memory, Trico flies to the boy's village and takes him from his dormitory. Trico returns to the Nest but is hit by lightning and chained by soldiers. In the present, Trico saves the boy after a cave collapses. After fighting off an attack by a second, armored creature, Trico and the boy enter a mysterious tower and find a harmful force called the "master of the valley." This force controls creatures and soldiers. It brings other creatures like Trico into the tower, which drop stolen children and attack Trico, tearing off part of its tail. The boy uses the mirror to create energy from the broken tail piece and defeats the master of the valley, causing the creatures to fall from the sky.
Injured, Trico carries the near-death boy back to his village. When the frightened villagers attack Trico, the boy tells it to leave. Years later, the now-grown boy finds the shield and holds it up to the sky, sending a beam of light to the Nest, where Trico lives and has a child.
Development
In his earlier game, Shadow of the Colossus, director Fumito Ueda aimed to create a strong emotional bond between the character Mono, who Wander tries to save, and the giant creatures Wander must fight to save her. He was surprised to see players form a stronger connection between Wander and his horse, Agro. This inspired Ueda to focus on the relationship between a human and an animal as the main idea for his next game.
Ueda noticed that people enjoy games with realistic animals. He believed The Last Guardian needed lifelike creatures to attract many players. He wanted Trico, the game’s main creature, to act as naturally as possible, avoiding behaviors that seemed fake. Ueda used his childhood experiences with animals to shape Trico’s actions. The final design of Trico is a mix of several animals, intentionally made to look unusual. The team avoided making Trico look cute and instead focused on realistic movements and expressions. For example, Trico’s ears twitch like a cat’s when they touch ceilings or tall objects, using a special computer system. The team added the ability for Trico to summon lightning from his tail to show his strength. Ueda described Trico as "adolescent," allowing the developers to include humorous actions. Instead of using motion capture, the team used pre-planned animation steps to capture subtle movements that would be hard to achieve with live animals.
Like the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus, Trico interacts with the player in a way that changes throughout the game. Journalists compared The Last Guardian to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, as Ueda said both games influenced it. The relationship between the boy, Trico, and the guards is like a game of rock-paper-scissors, where sometimes the boy needs Trico’s help and sometimes the roles are reversed. While Ico and Shadow of the Colossus also had changing relationships, Ueda said The Last Guardian has a wider range of interactions.
The Last Guardian is the first Team Ico game to use voice-over narration. Since much of the game relies on non-verbal communication between the boy and Trico, the narration helps players understand the boy’s thoughts and provides hints about the game.
For previous games, the team designed levels around characters they had already created. For The Last Guardian, they made Trico flexible so he could adapt to different levels. The size difference between the boy and Trico was influenced by the PlayStation 3’s hardware. If both characters were the same size, the team would have needed to animate both, but Trico’s larger size meant the boy’s movements had less impact on him.
The boy is less detailed than Trico but was animated using the same key frame method. He touches walls and tries to pet Trico without player input, helping players believe in the game’s world. The animation system uses layers that mimic real-life physics, made possible by the PlayStation 4’s power. The team considered making the boy a girl but decided it would not be realistic for a female character to climb Trico.
To create the game’s art and architecture, the team used the same "design through subtraction" method as in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, removing elements that distracted from the main experience. Music is used sparingly to highlight emotional moments, such as when Trico saves the boy from falling. The game emphasizes the boy’s small size by using vertical spaces.
The The Last Guardian game engine builds on AI processing from Ico and collision systems from Shadow of the Colossus. It is the first Team Ico game to use a full physics engine, Havok. Each of Trico’s feathers had wind effects modeled separately. Yasuhide Kobayashi, vice president of Japan Studio, said the title The Last Guardian was chosen to appeal to a broader audience in the United States and Europe, avoiding cultural issues that affected Ico’s sales.
In an August 2019 interview, Ueda mentioned that Trico’s PlayStation 3 version had more movement patterns than the PlayStation 4 version due to technical limitations.
Ueda had ideas for The Last Guardian around 2005 after finishing Shadow of the Colossus. Development began in 2007, a year after the PlayStation 3’s release. The working title was Project Trico, revealed publicly in 2008 through a leaked video. Ueda hoped to create a game quickly, as he had done with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. By 2009, enough of the game was completed to be shown at E3 2009. A short version of the game was shared with the press in 2011. Ueda considered including this demo in a remastered collection of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, but it was not added.
Behind the scenes, development was slow, according to Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment. The team struggled to meet Ueda’s vision on the PlayStation 3. In 2015, Yoshida said the 2009 trailer was sped up for presentation, running at a lower frame rate on the PlayStation 3. In 2012, the game was moved to the PlayStation 4 to improve performance. Ueda said this was Sony’s decision, and the PlayStation 3 version could still have worked. After the platform change, other teams, including Santa Monica Studios, helped adapt the game for the PlayStation 4. In 2015, Yoshida said the game engine was fully functional on the PlayStation 4, and the rest of the development focused on game design.
Development was delayed by Ueda’s departure from Sony in December 2011.
Release
Shawn Layden officially reintroduced The Last Guardian at the start of Sony's E3 2015 conference. Sony confirmed that the game would be released for the PlayStation 4 with a 2016 release date. Sony also confirmed that Ueda remained a key developer, even though he had previously left Sony. According to Chris Plante of Polygon, the gameplay shown during the presentation was the same as in earlier demonstrations, where a young boy and a large creature work together to solve platforming puzzles. The E3 2015 presentation highlighted that the game was now fully playable, as confirmed by members of the press. However, Yoshida explained that a live gameplay demo was not shown because the artificial intelligence of the creature could behave unpredictably during the demonstration. Ueda stated that the core gameplay mechanics had not changed from the original PlayStation 3 version, but the more powerful PlayStation 4 allowed for more detailed characters and environments.
Although the game was not playable at the 2015 Tokyo Game Show, Sony's display included a full-screen version of Trico that responded in real time to the movements of attendees, captured by a PlayStation Move camera. Yoshida noted that little additional footage had been shown since the E3 2015 announcement because the team believed the game's story was central to its appeal and feared revealing too much would reduce the surprise of playing it.
The Last Guardian was announced for release on 25 October 2016 in Japan and North America during Sony's E3 2016 presentation. At that event, attendees could experience a playable version of the game. During an interview with Kotaku at E3 2016, Ueda said the game was fully completed, with only minor adjustments to visuals and cut-scenes remaining. In September 2016, the release date was delayed to December 2016, as developers needed more time to fix issues found during final testing, according to Yoshida. By 21 October 2016, development was complete, and the game was submitted for production. A patch for the PlayStation 4 Pro added support for high dynamic range and 4K resolution.
In addition to regular retail copies, Sony released a "collector's edition" that included an artbook, a soundtrack, and a statue of Trico and the boy resting together. Before the game's release, Sony's Joe Palmer stated that pre-order numbers were "exceeding expectations," with strong interest in the collector's edition. A standalone demo version of The Last Guardian was released for the PlayStation VR on 12 December 2017. This VR version lets players experience interacting with Trico from the boy's perspective. After the PlayStation 5 launched in November 2020, players discovered that the game runs at 60 frames per second when played using an unpatched PlayStation 4 disc.
Reception
The Last Guardian received mostly positive reviews from Metacritic, a website that collects video game reviews. Many reviewers praised the game’s environment and story as its strongest features. Some critics liked how realistically Trico, the game’s animal character, behaved, but others said this realism made the gameplay frustrating because Trico sometimes did not act quickly when given commands.
Pete Brown from GameSpot praised the characters, their relationships, and the story. He noted that Trico sometimes acted independently, which could test players’ patience, but he also said this made Trico more relatable and added depth to the story. Tom Senior from GamesRadar called Trico “the greatest AI companion in games” and praised how visual and audio details influenced gameplay.
Simon Parkin from The Guardian highlighted Trico’s design and how it interacted with puzzles, which made players care more about the story. He compared Trico to an “abuse survivor” because it starts the game scared and imprisoned, and he said the game’s focus on kindness and companionship made it meaningful. Chris Carter from Destructoid said the realistic behavior of Trico and the boy was emotionally powerful, possibly explaining the long development time. Jermey Parish from US Gamer called Trico’s independent actions a breakthrough in character design and praised the emotional bond between Trico and the boy.
However, Marty Sliva from IGN criticized Trico’s behavior during puzzles and the camera controls, which made some parts of the game frustrating, especially in tight spaces. He also said the game’s camera felt outdated for a 2016 release. James Kozanitis from Game Revolution noted that Trico sometimes moved on its own without player input, making control feel ineffective at times.
Reviewers also mentioned technical issues on the PlayStation 4. Digital Foundry from Eurogamer found that the game had rendering problems and frame rate drops on the standard PlayStation 4, but it ran smoothly on the newer PlayStation 4 Pro. Philip Kollar from Polygon compared the game’s technical aspects to older PlayStation 2 games, saying it sometimes used PlayStation 4 features well but had issues like frame rate drops and controls that made its age noticeable. Sam Byford from The Verge said that while frame rate drops were common in older games like Shadow of the Colossus, they were more acceptable at the time, but similar issues on PlayStation 4 felt less forgivable.
The Last Guardian was listed on several year-end Game of the Year lists, including The New Yorker, Engadget, GameSpot, VG247, and Polygon. A 2023 poll by GQ ranked it as the 88th best video game of all time.
The game faced delays and little updates from Sony, leading some to call it “development hell” during its eight-year creation. Ueda and Yoshida shared progress updates, but the game was not shown at major events like E3 or the Tokyo Game Show.
Journalists also worried about the game’s release after its trademark reached key milestones. In 2012, Sony had not produced a game under the trademark, and in 2015, Sony failed to renew the North American trademark. Sony later re-registered it, calling the oversight a mistake, and confirmed the game was still in development.
Before its 2015 reintroduction, some journalists questioned whether The Last Guardian would still be a groundbreaking game. Evan Narcisse from Kotaku said the long delay might have made the game less relevant due to changes in the gaming industry. He noted that games like Papo & Yo, Bastion, The Walking Dead, and Journey offered similar emotional experiences. Leigh Alexander from Boing Boing agreed, saying the delay spanned a console generation and that other emotionally driven games had since been released. Rob Fahey from GamesIndustry.biz said The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy XV, both with long development times, represented old game development practices challenged by mobile gaming and independent developers.
News writers played The Last Guardian at E3 2016 and the 2016 Tokyo Game Show before its release. Patrick Garrett from VG247 said the visuals felt outdated compared to modern hardware and worried the game might not attract younger players. Philip Kollar from Polygon praised the characters and graphics but found the controls and camera difficult. Chris Kohler from Wired said the game required patience to observe Trico’s movements and solve puzzles, which might appeal to some players but not others.