Earlier in 2026, Sony shut down Bluepoint Games, the studio behind the implausible Demon’s Souls and Shadow of the Colossus remakes. In an interview with IGN, Fumito Ueda, the authentic creator of Shadow of the Colossus, expressed his unhappiness at Bluepoint’s demise, saying he’d hoped to work with the developer at the least as soon as extra.
Ueda had collaborated with Bluepoint a quantity of occasions, together with on 2011’s The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Assortment and the aforementioned 2018 Shadow of the Colossus remake. “So clearly, we had no heads-up,” Ueda mentioned of Bluepoint’s closure. “We’re circuitously in relation with any undertaking, so I heard about it at the identical time you guys in all probability did in the information, and it was disappointing and unhappy to listen to. I might have hoped that perhaps in the future there may very well be an opportunity to work with them on one thing. So yeah, it’s extremely unhappy to listen to the information.”
Ueda is already laborious at work on his upcoming undertaking, gen ATLAS, a sci-fi journey starring big robots in a transfer away from the fantasy settings the legendary developer is understood for. But it surely’s intriguing to consider what different undertaking he might have labored with Bluepoint on. So, naturally, I requested precisely that.
“That may be laborious to reply,” Ueda defined. “I imply, perhaps I suppose, as we all know how Bluepoint operated, is that they work on actually good remakes, proper? So it might be perhaps one thing [like that]. However yeah, it is simply unhappy that they are now not round.”
“Possibly Ico?” I requested. “Possibly Ico,” he replied with a smile.
The remake of Shadow of the Colossus was pretty much as good a contemporary interpretation of that masterpiece as we might ever have dreamed of getting again in 2018, so fascinated about what might have been performed with Ico is a tantalising prospect certainly. Sadly, this can clearly by no means occur, definitely not beneath Bluepoint, which, as I wrote earlier this 12 months, is but one other instance of a PlayStation acquisition horror story.
Earlier than its shutdown, Bluepoint spent a number of years creating an unannounced live-service God of Conflict title. After Sony canceled that undertaking in early 2025, the studio spent their closing months pitching varied new ideas, together with a Ghost of Tsushima spinoff, a Bloodborne remaster, and a renewed Shadow of the Colossus remake. There was no phrase on Ico, nonetheless.
Nonetheless, we’ve got new Fumito Ueda video games to look ahead to, as gen ATLAS acquired its full reveal at this 12 months’s Summer season Sport Fest. The debut sport from The Final Guardian director’s new studio, genDESIGN, might be the first time one of his releases has not been a PlayStation unique, after coming into a publishing take care of Epic.
Keep tuned for extra from my interview with Fumito Ueda, as we reveal every part we realized about gen ATLAS, together with its themes, gameplay, and rather more.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can primarily be discovered skulking round open world video games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Comply with him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.