The Last Guardian, The Game That May Never Be, Delayed Yet Again

What began in late 2007 as one of the most anticipated video games ever made, has since become the butt of jokes, the vision of daydreams, and the pinnacle of desires. Is it just a fallacy? Will we ever actually get to play/own The Last Guardian? Who can really know. What we do know is that it has once again been delayed.

Originally, SIE Japan and genDESIGN planned to release the game for the PS3 back in 2011, but after disagreements, infrastructure issues, and a the rumor of a new Playstation console on the way, the waterfall of delays began.

This game—the spiritual successor to the cult clasics Shadow of the Collosus, and ICO—has been on our minds for almost a decade, yet remains out of reach. Not a soul outside of the development studios in Japan have even played the game.

It has been delayed a half-dozen times, and at this point is just the Unicorn of the gaming industry. Maybe Schrödinger’s Game is a better title. Does it really even exist? These last few pushes have hurt the worst.

After near deafening silence for five years, The Last Guardian was reintroduced to the world at E3 2015, and again in 2016, which froze fans in their tracks with a palpable excitement.

When the title re-emerged from the shadows, there was a “summer 2016” slated release, which got pushed back to October 25, 2016, earlier this year. Now, as that date is fast approaching, Playstation released a blog post stating that they will be delaying the game again. This time, until December 6.

Whether of not we will actually see the release of this game in December is a far-fetched idea, but one that could make the wishes of the world come true. If you were to put money on it however, I’d put your bucks down for early 2017.

Here’s the official blog post from Playstation:

The Last Guardian development team is fast approaching major milestones in production and has made the tough decision to delay the release of The Last Guardian a few weeks. The Last Guardian will launch on December 6, 2016.

Fumito Ueda, gen DESIGN and JAPAN Studio have a wonderful vision for The Last Guardian’s touching, emotional journey of friendship and trust, and we want to deliver the most polished experience possible for our fans who have supported us for so long. A delay is a difficult decision, particularly with this game, but we have encountered more bugs than anticipated while in the final stages of development. To ensure that The Last Guardian delivers on the experience that the game’s creators have envisioned, we need to take the extra time to work on those issues.

Our development continues to push itself to the fullest and we look forward to revealing new content toward launch.

We appreciate your continued support.

Interestingly, the outrage—and by outrage I mean death-threats, and vulgarity—recently faced by the developers of No Man’s Sky when announcing their delay has stayed away (in most parts) from this announcement. Maybe everyone is resigned to life without it, and it no longer holds the punch it could have had it avoided the shaky development process.

The Last Guardian’s new release date of December 6 still isn’t too far off, so you may want to get your pre-orders in now (if you don’t already have a seven-year-old receipt in your wallet somewhere).