According to the latest rumblings of the rumor mill, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda has left Sony to pursue freelance work.
Don’t panic, he’s still going to finish The Last Guardian. According to Eurogamer, the 41-year-old developer is still working with Team ICO in a freelance capacity, but it’s unclear, at this point, how much creative control of the project he’s retained. Sony, as usual, is refusing to comment on the rumor.
Including the long-awaited The Last Guardian, Ueda has only worked on four games – acting as director/lead designer on all but one – during his fifteen year development career, all of which have had notoriously long and difficult development cycles. The Last Guardian was originally slated for a late 2011 release, but has since been delayed till sometime in 2012.
In the past, Ueda has mentioned that he’s interested in developing a first person shooter once work on The Last Guardian has finished, citing Half Life 2 as a source of inspiration.
Source: Eurogamer
