The Last Guardian developer posts teaser art for its next game

The Last Guardian developer GenDesign has released artwork for its next game, via a 2021 greeting card.

GenDesign was formed in 2014 by former members of Team Ico, the PlayStation Japan team Fumito Ueda helmed for critically-acclaimed projects Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005).

GenDesign’s next game will be one of the first published by Epic Games’ new publishing label, alongside projects from Remedy (Control) and Playdead (Inside).

In an announcement video published in March last year, Epic said its publishing label would offer “the most developer-friendly terms in the industry,” so that creators can “focus on making great games.”

Fumito Ueda said of the deal: “Since we have gone indie and opened a studio, I want to be able to reach more players than before.”

GenDesign teased its upcoming project once before, via a website teaser published in 2018. The same year, Ueda told Famitsu that the unannounced project would rival the scale of his previous titles.

“What we’re making now doesn’t feel like an indie game. We’re ultimately aiming for something on the scale of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian,” Ueda said.

“If larger-scale development becomes of interest to us, then I think we will significantly expand our development system and take it to a large-scale development team to make it a big game.”

“This will be a completely new title, not a sequel.”

In November, a Bloomberg report claimed that Ueda’s former employer Sony Japan was being increasingly “sidelined” as the corporation placed more importance on the US market.

PlayStation’s Japan Studio, which co-developed games such as Bloodborne, Astro’s Playroom and The Last Guardian, has reportedly seen the rolling contracts of many of its creators not renewed and developer support teams reduced by as much as a third from their peak.

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