The E3 website E3Insider has included a PlayStation 3 listing for Team Ico’s slightly overdue bird-dog simulator, The Last Guardian, indicating that we might finally see the long delayed title on the show floor next week.
Always ready to throw water on any potential good news in regards to The Last Guardian, Sony has officially commented on the E3Insider listing to Kotaku, calling it “not true” and nothing more than “pure speculation.” With E3 just around the corner it would be really surprising for Sony to blow the surprise and confirm the reveal of Team Ico’s game, so it looks like we will just have to wait until next week to see if the listing has any truth behind it.
The last time that Sony officially confirmed that The Last Guardian would be released for the PlayStation 3 was back in August 2012, when Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida revealed that “technical issues” (after six years in development) forced the studio to “re-do” some of the engineering work on the title.
Following that disappointing status update, Yoshida changed his tune in February 2013 by refusing to confirm that The Last Guardian was still in development for the PS3. Yoshida dodged the question by stating that the publisher was “waiting for the right time to reintroduce” Team Ico’s game, and they were “not ready to talk about” their plans.
Naturally, that statement led to speculation that the game had been moved over to the PlayStation 4 (a theory which was later supported by a former Sony employee posting on the NeoGAF forum), however, Sony has never issued an official statement on the matter either way.
The only thing we know for sure is that the The Last Guardian is still in development hell at Team Ico for one of Sony’s platforms. We will keep an eye out for any hint of the game at E3 next week, and let you know if Sony re-announces it at the event.
