How The Shadow Of The Colossus Director Is Approaching His Next Game: "There's Always Something More"

In 2005, he followed up Ico with Shadow of the Colossus, which put him on the map for millions of players, and then transitioned to The Last Guardian in 2016 after a lengthy development cycle. Since then, he's been fairly quiet, as fans wait with bated breath to find out what his next project might be.

Well, we finally got a good look at it during the opening ceremony for Summer Game Fest (SGF), and it's decidedly different than anything he's done before. The sci-fi themed Gen Atlas looks just as intriguing as his past works, and we got the chance to talk to the man himself about what to expect.

Immediately, I asked Ueda if he saw that Gen Atlas was a huge shift for him, especially given the sci-fi setting, which stands apart from the rest of his decidedly fantasy-adjacent fare.

Ueda responds: "The evolution, for me, personally, is like how I view the evolution from Ico to Shadow Of The Colossus; the evolution of the changes that took place between those two, and then from Shadow to The Last Guardian, and then from The Last Guardian to Gen Atlas. There are changes and evolutions and shifts, like directional shifts that took place in terms of how much combat or how action-oriented things are, but I don't see it as I don't view it as a significant shift."

No matter how many ingredients you have, if you don't plate it correctly, it might not be consumed the way you intended.

"I don't view it as a large sort of big change, but in terms of mechanics, what I can say in Gen Atlas is that you know the smaller character that you see is a humanoid, and then you're going to have these giant robots, and you will be able to basically switch between the two perspectives, so you can enjoy them sort of separately from a macro perspective, and then more of a smaller, like micro perspective, so that might feel very new to players who have played my previous games."

Of course, 2026 is a completely different era technologically than 2016, when his last game was released. Musing on the fact that Ueda never really feels behind the times, he is extremely confident in his ability to bring his vision to life yet again with Gen Atlas:

"I take that [previous success] as a sign that I've succeeded in delivering the experience that I wanted to, but that isn't always the case. As a creator, there's always something more that I want to do, and what I mean by that is, like, you know, we always have to work with the technology of the era, how much we can do and how much we can push and fully take advantage of what was available at that time helps to also make the best possible decisions without having to sacrifice or give up on these ideas."

"So if that's genuinely how you felt, then that tells me that I have succeeded. It's kind of like when you have this beautiful plate and all these ingredients, and it's really a matter of how you best plate and present it. No matter how many ingredients you have, if you don't plate it correctly, it might not be consumed the way you intended, so if that's how you felt, then that means that I was able to plate the plate nicely with all the ingredients that were at my disposal."

The dire tone of the world really struck a chord with me, but apparently not everything is going to be as it seems: "What we're showing here at this moment, in terms of it being dire, is likely true, and it depends on the player and how they interpret it, but I don't think all of that is packed into this one [trailer] that we're showing. I think in its entirety, as a game experience, and how the story is told and unfolds as you progress. This is really only a small amount of what to expect in the full game."

Similarly, the music was extremely striking, in that it conveys a sense of hopelessness and wonder at the same time. Ueda comments on the track usage: "What you heard in this trailer was fitted specifically for the trailer, so it may not come in the same sort of form or shape in the final game experience, but it'll take a very similar direction overall. I don't know if these are the right words, but it won't be as grand as a Hollywood film. It's a thematic score, and it also won't be something that feels kind of small and suppressed or compact, like something that is new and fresh, but something that really stands out and is very fitting to the world, and very similar to what you are hearing right now."

The relationship between man and machine will also play a part, which I mentioned has a ton of potential. Ueda agrees: "So those things sort of combine will still hopefully give you the sense of like partnership with the robot, but I can think of one real life situation that I can see. If there's somebody who's really into their car or motorcycle, and they treat them as their best friend or their companion, yeah, but they don't really have a human heart and soul, but you get so sucked into being attached to that piece of machinery, right, as if they are your partner, and so you spend a lot of time with them, and a lot of care with them, and so maybe that's as similar as I can say about like how you would feel about the robots in general."

They don't really have a human heart and soul, but you get so sucked into being attached to that piece of machinery as if they are your partner.

So what percentage of the game is action-based? Well, the action-heavy trailer might not tell the entire story: "I can't really put a number or a percentage on it. That's a little hard to say, but as we've seen already, there's some shooting action, and obviously the climbing, all of the action that you will see in this game doesn't require a very high skill sort of like reflex, like it's not a super skill oriented or skill based thing, like where you know you're going to have this very precise sort of shooting sort of skill. It's more for me, it's more about the thrill and kind of the exhilaration, that sense of accomplishment at that moment, and how that is integrated into these scenes, like that's more of what I'm focused on, and delivering an experience that feels perfect."

"So, of course, I am looking forward to a wider sort of audience being immediately available to pick up and see the game for themselves, but at the same time, it's a new challenge that I can now say that I am onboarding myself to, because I've never developed for more than one platform, so there have been some challenges. But yes, in the end, the fact that it can go out to more players from day one is a very exciting thing for us."

"[The protagonist] is not meant to be a superhero, although he seems very capable. But in this world, this humanoid character is [a regular person] and that's how they exist in this world. So he's not secure; they are not superior; they're also not in need of or deficient in something there. This is where everything sort of starts, so you can think of it as nothing special, meaning even my past games, the boy girl, like they are pretty ordinary in that sense, in their space, in their existence."

The level of ambition is off the charts here, and Ueda is fully aware of it: "If I were to mention one thing, it is that this game does incorporate more than one mechanic that needs to really work in harmony and needs to be well-balanced, and be very cohesive, so that not one thing can stand out from the other, right. And so I didn't necessarily have that skill to know how much of what I can implement, or we can do, and so trying to figure out that right balance was probably one of the more challenging things."

"[The protagonist] is not meant to be a superhero.

Things are a lot different now for Ueda as well. Instead of operating as an employee of Sony Interactive Entertainment, he's helping to run a company, and a lot of extra responsibility comes with that:

"This is really speaking only about my own experience, but when I was making The Last Guardian, I was within Sony, and I am just one employee of many at the organization, and that's clearly different from where I'm at today. We have a brand-new studio, and then I need to make sure that the organization is also healthy, so running a company at the same time is one thing that is just clearly different, and what that tells me, or what that, I guess, gives me signals at times, that you know, even if we think it's a great idea. I have to now look at the cost that is associated, not cost, just literally, but like, what does it take to do that, and you know, is taking that path going to be doable, realistic, or is it just not even realistic or risky?"

"Those are the things that I didn't necessarily have to think about back when I was at Sony, and so I, for a lack of, I guess you know, not knowing, or well, not knowing allowed me to not until also when to pull the brakes, but now I have to like sometimes plan the brakes, or just be a bit more mindful of like, okay, we want to do this, but how are we going to do it, and how much is it going to really cost? So, I don't know if that has a great sort of, if that has a great effect on the creative that I do, but just in general, that's a big difference between what I was doing before and how we're managing our company and our project."

Gen Atlas is currently slated for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. It does not have a release window, but as the first Ueda game that's not a PlayStation exclusive, it'll be easier to get your hands on it.