E3 2014: Conflicting Reports on the State of The Last Guardian

By Steve Butts

Update 2: Further information this morning reveals Sony Russia, the source of the original news, told journalists that The Last Guardian won't be available on any platform. The news has been reported on by multiple outlets within Russia. Head of Worldwide Studios Scott Rohde, who is obviously in a position to know, denied the cancellation on Twitter, so the story now seems to be a misunderstanding on the state of the game within Sony's global teams. We reached out to Sony prior to reporting this news yesterday but have not received any additional details directly from Sony of America. We're continuing to follow up on the story and will bring you new updates as we get them.

Update: Scott Rohde on his Twitter says the cancellation is a rumor and "The Last Guardian has NOT been cancelled." We have linked to the original story on IGN Russia. We're committed to getting the full story and will be updating this piece with more information as it develops. IGN has reached out to Sony but has received no additional information. At this point, we may be looking at a situation similar to the one where Jack Tretton announced the game was on hiatus but was quickly contradicted by Shuhei Yoshida.

Original story follows...

While many at IGN have been eagerly hoping for the appearance of The Last Guardian at E3 this year, we won’t be seeing the game anymore. IGN has received a report this evening that “The Last Guardian is finally cancelled.” According to an internal source speaking to IGN Russia, the information was disclosed in “Sony’s internal meeting last week.”

Last March, Scott Rohde, Head of Software Product Development at Sony, told IGN The Last Guardian is still “absolutely in the mix at Sony Worldwide Studios.” The game was first revealed at E3 in 2009 with a projected release date of 2011. While 2011 didn’t see the release of the game, we did finally get a chance to see the game running in March of that year. In 2012 Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida confirmed the game was still in development, despite the withdrawal of the game’s executive producer, Yoshifusa Hayama, and the departure shortly after of Team ICO’s founder, Fumito Ueda.

In the wake of subsequent, conflicting reports that the game was on hiatus, Yoshida recently explained that the studio was waiting to reintroduce the title.

IGN has reached out for additional comment from Sony.

Steve Butts is Editor-in-Chief at IGN and is sad. Follow him on Twitter.