Much like Duke Nukem Forever become an industry joke and a vaporware for a long time, The Last Guardian is becoming much the same. While the game was announced many years ago, it’s continued to miss deadlines with only vague wording from those involved with it on where the project is. While some in Sony’s own camp like Jack Tretton believe the project had been put on hiatus, others are quick to point out that there is still a small team working away on the title which might be the best description for the status of the game. In fact, last we’d heard from Ueda, the games original creator who is no longer directly involved with the game and is merely overseeing it as a consultant said that the title is still under development and not cancelled or in hiatus. Ueda went on to say:

 SCE Japan Studio, who’s working on The Last Guardian, also has titles like Puppeteer and Knack, and those are only the ones currently announced. Those are taking priority right now 

This of course makes sense, seeing how Puppeteer has in the last month been released on the PS3 to great reviews and Knack will soon follow with the PS4 launch. But now the outspoken Shuhei Yoshida has some new details to reveal about the project which may tie together all the different news pieces we’ve heard about the title.

In speaking with GamesIndusry.Biz, Shu revealed that work is indeed still being conducted on The Last Guardian and that not project has not been cancelled. He went on to stay:

 Hiatus, I never… It was Jack Tretton! He used that term, and I said no, hiatus is misleading. It was a hiatus in terms of releasing new information. The game has never stopped–the team has always been here. They’re going through the reengineering of the game, so the team size is smaller, because it’s more engineering focused right now. 

This of course makes sense and helps bring so  much of what we’ve heard together. It seems like at some point in the games development, the team was no longer happy with the outcome of their game. Be it a mechanical flaw or a narrative one. Instead of scrapping the project all together, Sony still has a small team working away on the title while the rest of Japan Studio continued to work on other titles that were on track like Puppeteer, Rain, and Knack. It’s likely that once the core concept of the game is rebuilt and Sony feels that the team has a path that will lead them to a finished game, that more resources will  be given to the project. Now the only question that remains is if the game will be a PS3 or PS4 title. As more time passes, the latter seems to be the likely answer though it’s also hard to ignore the install base that the PS3 commands.

Discuss:

Do you think The Last Guardian will be a PS3 or PS4 title?