Source
Interesting interview and insight into the man and how he designs his games
The whole thing is well worth reading
Edit: I added in some more quotes I found interesting
Lock and then dramatically unlock at a future E3 if old
When asked about the way in which intimate relationships have figured highly in his three PlayStation games, he shrugs and smiles. “It’s interesting,” he says. “From our side, we didn’t have a strong intent to portray relationships as a theme of our games. We actually tried not to do that. But as a lot of people played through Ico and Shadow of Colosuss, they said, ‘Oh, these games are about building a bond, they’re about trust.’ From my perspective, I just say, here, go ahead, play it – then at the end, the player can come to their own conclusion about what the game is trying to tell them. I don’t like to force feed themes.”
Indeed, it’s surprise about how players have interpreted his past work that led to the pairing at the centre of Last Guardian – the boy and the beast. “Once we were done with Shadow of Colossus there was a moment when I reflected on what we really wanted to communicate and portray in that game,” he says. “For me it was the main relationship between Wander and the girl, but after the release, I read a lot of feedback from players who were touched by the game, and they said that the relationship between Wander and the horse was the most important and appealing – we got the sense that this was what most people felt. I thought OK, if that’s the case, there are a lot of mechanics from that relationship that we could heighten and expand on. That’s where The Last Guardian came from.”
Ten years ago, in a rare biographical interview with the Japanese games magazine Continue, he claimed that while studying art at university he specifically chose to specialise in conceptual art for the main practical component so that he could get away with bashing together something abstract a day before the course deadline. Of course, no one could accuse him of bashing his games together, but he retains the self-deprecating air of the chancer who made good, who is almost mystified by the meaning that people ascribe to his work.
“The main character is controlled by the player, so the main character is you,” he says. “But because every single gamer is different, it’s very hard to give the player an exact definition of the protagonist: it’s up to you who the main character is going to be. As a developer, in order to form such a character you need assistance from that character’s surroundings – that’s where the role of the NPC, or opposite character in the case of our games, comes in. The secondary character helps shape the main character. That’s how we make our games.”
In short, Yorda, Trico and the horse aren’t there just as narrative allies, they’re there – in very much the Hollywood movie script tradition – to help the player interpret the protagonist.
One thing he won’t be doing is playing Last Guardian – at least not for a while. “With all my titles – when the game is released, I’m extremely nervous,” he says. “In the week after the release I don’t want to look at the game. All I’ll see are the flaws. I wouldn’t want to see it with that perspective because I don’t want to think about regrets. Even seeing tiny bugs I’ll think, why didn’t we squash that one?But sometime later, maybe after a year, I’ll be able to calm down and take a look.”
Interesting interview and insight into the man and how he designs his games
The whole thing is well worth reading
Edit: I added in some more quotes I found interesting
Lock and then dramatically unlock at a future E3 if old