in 2016, GenDesign issued The last guard, and while the next game hasn’t been released yet, it could hit the Tokyo Game Show. It’s no surprise that the next project is taking a while; The last guard spent more than seven years in development hell, moving from the PlayStation 3 to the PlayStation 4, with director Fumito Ueda even leaving Sony during the game’s development. The game also marked the end of Team Ico, the developer of beloved PlayStation classics such as icon and Shadow of the Colossuswith the remaining team members starting an independent studio called GenDesign in 2014 before finishing it The last guard.
Since the release of The last guardGenDesign has remained almost dead silent about the status of its next project, probably a lesson learned from the tumultuous development of The last guard, including many public delays and disagreements with publisher Sony. That said, evidence points to the studio getting ready to reveal its next title before the end of the year, and with Tokyo Game Show just around the corner, it looks like the announcement could come much sooner than expected.
GenDesign After The Last Guardian
The last guard shipped in December 2016 after nine years of development and more than eleven years after Team Ico shipped Shadow of the Colossus on the PlayStation 2. The game’s launch seemed to mark the end of GenDesign’s partnership with Sony, and in 2018 GenDesign began teasing the next game, releasing a blurred image of a young woman and a large figure wearing the subtitled “Beauty and the Beast, 2018.” Fumito Ueda revealed later that year that the studio had begun prototyping its next project, with funding from independent video game industry investor Kowloon Nights.
When Sony started to dismantle its Japanese studios in 2020 and rework them into the current version of Team Asobi, the developer of the Astro Bot series, GenDesign returned with an exciting announcement. The studio announced that it has entered into a publishing deal with Epic Games to publish its next game, a cross-platform title. This will be the studio’s first fully developed project as an independent team, and it was announced that Epic will fund the project in full, with the game’s profits split 50/50 between Epic and GenDesign.
This was GenDesign’s first big news about the next game, implying that the wait wouldn’t be as painful as The last guards, with Epic Games getting the studio a seemingly very profitable publishing deal. GenDesign would be silent again until 2021, when the studio again teased its next game in a New Year’s postcard on its website, featuring art that resembled a young girl standing beneath a giant mechanical creature. This art was arranged next to images of icon, Shadow of the Colossusand The last guardmeaning it’s indicative of the upcoming game from Fumito Ueda and GenDesign.
While most of 2021 was spent celebrating iconCelebrating the 20th anniversary, with several GenDesign contributors conducting interviews to mark the occasion, the most recent tease for the studio’s next game came in the form of art posted by Fumito Ueda in January this year. . In addition to the artwork of a tiger to mark the Chinese New Year, Ueda claimed he will try to make new announcements in 2022, implying that the team started planning the next game this year.
Can GenDesign’s next game appear at the Tokyo Game Show?
It’s hard to deny that GenDesign could be announcing the next big title at the Tokyo Game Show. Under Sony, Team Ico showed both icon and Shadow of the Colossus at Tokyo Game Show events, with icon will initially be revealed as a PS1 game and Shadow of the Colossus originally revealed as Nicoa cooperative sequel to icon in which four players took down giant beasts.
Many of GenDesign’s social media posts in recent years have been job postings for upcoming projects, as the game is still in active development and likely years away from release. Today, some games are announced early to spark interest for potential job seekers within the industry, meaning that even if the game is still in development, there’s a chance GenDesign could showcase it at Tokyo Game Show to help fill its vacancies. . Tactics such as this have been cited as why the will of the next Mass effect, The Witcherand Tomb Raider games were announced so early in development.
All of this is speculation though, as it’s just as likely that Epic Games is waiting to announce GenDesign’s next event at a mainstream western event like The Game Awards as it is at Remedy’s. Alan Wake 2 last Dec. Epic Games has collaborated with host Geoff Keighley in the past and probably plans to give the game the biggest reveal it can have. Regardless, there’s still a chance that GenDesign’s next game will be revealed well before the end of 2022.
GenDesign‘s next game is currently in development.
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