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While The Last Guardian isn't being shown in an official capacity at GDC this year, Sony has released a series of new images of the upcoming PS3 exclusive. Unsurprisingly, it's still quite the looker.

#video The first beast lumbers in the distance. My sword is drawn as a I race ahead, jumping and then plunging it into his back calf. Blood spurts out towards me. I've been here before. It was beautiful then, but nothing like this. More »

#fumitoueda Japan is in a funk. Too many sequels, too many character-based titles and not enough original games. Fumito Ueda is once again bucking that trend. The 39-year-old is working on his third game, The Last Guardian. The game tells the story of a young boy and a large bird-like animal named Trico. It's anything but typical. More »

When digital characters stir real memories.

#ps3 "Project Trico" flashes on the screen, followed by "Sony Computer Entertainment". There's a low rumble, and Trico, the bird-like dog creature, slumbers. This isn't The Last Guardian's opening, but whatever it is, it looks great. More »

Not much is known about The Last Guardian, Team Ico's first game for PS3, but PlayStation Blog has posted a short Q&A with Fumito Ueda, the creative director behind the mysterious title, and it offers some insight into the game.

Ueda clarifies that The Last Guardian is not a "pet game," although the player will be protected by Trico, a giant guardian "animal." The player's character is a boy -- with no name ... "yet" -- who must escape from the location seen in the trailers. While Ueda doesn't outright confirm it, he does tease that players could run into other creatures the size of the guardian.

While that might bring to mind the epic boss battles that comprised Ueda's last game, Shadow of the Colossus, he reiterates that "the boy is unable to defeat the enemies on his own." The mechanics of The Last Guardian's gameplay aren't fully in place yet, Ueda explained, but "it doesn't take much time to change the control scheme." The end result is likely to be something more accessible than Shadow of the Colossus, though. "I also want people who are not serious game players to try out this game. So I want the controls to be simpler than before."

#teamico A few more tantalizing tidbits of information about upcoming PS3 exclusive The Last Guardian popped up in a recent interview between the Playstation Blog and the game's developer. More »

Fumito Ueda is a name well known to most PlayStation fans. After directing the iconic PS2 games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, Ueda-san fast became one of the most celebrated figures in international game development. Now he’s working on a new game, the boy-beast buddy adventure The Last Guardian. If you missed the new trailer released one week ago at the Tokyo Game Show, you can watch it below.

While in Tokyo, I had the pleasure of speaking with Ueda-san about The Last Guardian and his upcoming PS3 compilation Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection. I knew that getting a lot of firm details about a game as enigmatic and ambitious as The Last Guardian would be no easy task, so I decided to focus my questions on learning more about how the game plays, its core mechanics, and nuances I spotted in the trailer. Ueda-san’s replies provide a rare glimpse into one of 2011′s most intriguing games.

Sid Shuman: How would you describe The Last Guardian to somebody who had never seen it before?

Fumito Ueda, Director, The Last Guardian: It’s not a pet game, but there is a live animal in the game. I would describe it as an adventure game that you play with this animal.

SS: Will you control the boy, Trico, or both?

FU: You can only control the boy.

SS: What can you tell us about the boy? Does he have a name? Is he on a quest of some sort?

FU: The boy does not have a name…yet. The goal of the boy is to escape from the location you see in the trailer.

SS: Judging by the video, Trico (the beast) appears to be be a powerful force in combat situations. Is there a combat element to The Last Guardian? How does it work?

FU: As you saw in the video, Trico is able to defeat an enemy with one swipe. So in that sense, he functions as a guardian of sorts. But the boy is unable to defeat the enemies on his own — that’s the gameplay element involved.

SS: What can you tell us about the enemies we’ve seen in The Last Guardian? In the trailer, they appear to almost fall apart like statues…

FU: I can’t give you any details about the enemies. But I will say that they are not acting fully out of their own intentions.

SS: Is Trico the only creature of that size in The Last Guardian’s world?

FU: Again, I can’t give you any specific details. But there may be something like that out there…

SS: Shadow of the Colossus was known for its unusual control scheme. Will The Last Guardian follow suit with its controls, or will the controls feel familiar to players?

FU: The actual method of controls and button layouts have not been decided yet, because it doesn’t take much time to change the control scheme. But because we’re using the theme of an animal for The Last Guardian, I also want people who are not serious game players to try out this game. So I want the controls to be simpler than before.

SS: Many game journalists — and even the entry on Wikipedia — have described Shadow of the Colossus as one of the best examples for video games being an art form. How does that make you feel? Do you agree?

FU: I’m happy about it, I’m flattered. But I wonder what part are they are referring to when they make that comment, that it’s art. What part are they looking at? Because I think it’s possible to make it even more artistic. But because it’s a video game, those possibilities have been subdued somewhat — it’s a game. So I’d be interested to know what part, exactly, they mean when they refer to it as art.

There are games out there that are much more artistic than Shadow of the Colossus. And personally I also believe that it would be possible to make it even more “arty,” so to speak.

SS: What other games do you think represent a good argument for games as art?

FU: I guess it depends on how you define art, of course. But in a Japanese conception of the term “art,” it’s thought that it might be something that’s difficult to understand, or complex. Or something unique or uncommon.

So given that definition of art, maybe it’s a little detrimental to actually name any titles.

SS: You were asking why so many people name Shadow of the Colossus as an example of art. I think many people would answer that it’s because players begin to sympathize with the Colossi…

FU: So it makes you think — I understand.

#hollywood Turning the solitary world of PlayStation 2 classic Shadow of the Colossus into a movie, as some people are attempting to do, is a tricky prospect. How to turn a series of 16 battles against giant furry foes into a two-hour film? More »

Themes, hints at gameplay, and reveals intriguing design choices.

#tgs Team Ico's creative vision has never been in doubt, but I don't think even the developer's most zealous fans would have expected 2011 release The Last Guardian to look this gorgeous. More »

A busy day for Team Ico at Tokyo Game Show! In addition to confirming Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection for PS3, Team Ico also showed off a brand-new trailer for The Last Guardian depicting a variety of real-time gameplay footage.

Also, we’ve uploaded new screens of The Last Guardian; click on them to see more.

#tgs The man behind Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, Fumito Ueda, is presenting his latest projects at Tokyo Game Show today, offering insight into the designer's new (and not so new) work. More »

Next title from Team ICO coming a bit later.

#teamico Sony showed a new trailer for Team Ico's The Last Guardian at its Tokyo Game Show press conference earlier today. Here it is! More »

#tgs Sony has put a date on Team ICO's highly anticipated third game, The Last Guardian. The PlayStation 3 game will be released at some point during the "holiday 2011" window. More »

We may get our next look at the next game from Team Ico in about a month!

#e3 Missing in action. Conspicuous by their absence. The elephants not in the room. E3 delivered a cornucopia of news about new games, devices and concepts, but there were plenty of no-shows, too. These are the Glaring Omissions of E3 2010. More »

Two heavily-anticipated PS3 titles are nowhere to be found.

#e3 The PlayStation people promise a lot of things. They did one year ago. Now those promises and plans are being checked, by me, to see which elements of their E3 2009 Sony hype came true and which did not. More »

Impressed? Director Fumito Ueda shows that he's mastered art of the tease in recent interview.

We're not going to pussy-foot around this (ha, you said -- nevermind): Team Ico's highly-anticipated The Last Guardian finally has an honest-to-goodness website now, chock full of saliva-inducing high-res screens. Aside from that, there isn't really much there at the site now -- apart from the trailers we've all seen way too many times but, hey, you might as well watch them again because it's been [insert any amount of time here] since you last watched them and why not? Anyway, go to the site and look at the new screens. What? No more words! The only thing we want to hear is you going "awwww" at the beautiful relationship between a young boy and his catbird thing. [Via VG247]

Director Fumito Ueda discusses exciting new story elements to expect from The Last Guardian.

Though the Japanese aren't exactly known for their love affair with first-person shooters, Team Ico director Fumito Ueda can name at least one that he digs: Half-Life 2. Speaking to G4TV (through a translator), Ueda named the Valve-developed sequel when asked which games he has had an emotional reaction to."There was variation in terms [of] locations and also [in] the way of storytelling in the game. Usually, you have to incorporate storytelling with constraints, but the way [Valve] implemented constraints was something different that I enjoyed, compared to other games," observed Ueda. He's even considered making his own first-person game at some point, stating, "I have an interest in making first-person games."If Ueda's previous development cycle lengths are any indication, we tentatively expect to see a Ueda-developed first-person game by 2025 or so ... at the earliest. [Image credit: jeriaska]

The standalone trailer from TGS 2009.

We had a few minutes to chat with Fumito Ueda, director of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and the upcoming The Last Guardian. He explained the game's unusual Japanese title to us, and talked about the possibilities of PSN support. Read on for more:The Japanese title of The Last Guardian is much longer than the English one. Can you explain what the Japanese title means?Initially, the project started as "Project Torico." In the past, we haven't used the project name in the actual title of the game. For example, Shadow of the Colossus (Wanda to Kyozo) had a different project name, "Nico." I wanted the project name to be in the title this time, but it wasn't so well received by the international crew. They said a more simple, more direct title would be better. My hope, or my intention is that the Japanese title is the original title of the game.[A literal translation of the title, as suggested by Sony in the presence of Ueda, was "Man Eating Giant Eagle: Torico."]

See the evolution of the latest creation from the minds behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.