The Last Guardian



The Last Guardian is the third work by Team Ico. The game, which takes place in the same world as Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, tells the story of a young boy who is trying to escape from deep within what appear to be the ruins of a massive castle.

Hindering the boy's escape are mysterious armor-clad soldiers who attempt to capture him; luckily though, the boy earns the friendship of a giant, horned baby griffin named Trico, who is able to make short work of them. Together, they must find a way out of the castle.

The game was released in December 2016 after nine years in Development Hell, some having to do with the game being moved from the Play Station 3 to the PlayStation 4.

As with other Team Ico works, there is assuredly something heart-wrenching awaiting you at The Reveal.


 * A Boy and His X: A boy and his giant, horned baby griffin.
 * Animated Armor: There's nothing inside the guards' armor, except for some black smoke.
 * Annoying Arrows: Although Trico has bunch of them sticking out of his back, he doesn't seem to be hindered by them at all.
 * Possibly subverted, as pulling arrows from his body is apparently one of the ways the boy takes care of him.
 * Child Eater: I wonder what's in those strange barrels you've been feeding to your friend the whole game?
 * Development Hell: Good lord. Progress on the game was incredibly slow, featuring several false starts, Ueda announcing that he's leaving Team Ico (though committed to finishing it via contract), and false news of cancellation due to a lack of information. It's gotten to the point that Sony ended up using outside help just to finish the game.
 * Faceless Goons: The guards.
 * Human Resources: The entire facility is powered by kidnapped children, and the remains fed to the guardian beasts.
 * Interspecies Friendship: The boy and Trico
 * Powered by a Forsaken Child: The whole facility
 * Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Like Shadow of the Colossus, it features massive amounts of them.
 * Scary Impractical Armor: The guards' armor is very elaborately engraved and quite menacing, if a bit oxidized. It's a wonder though, that they have any peripheral vision while wearing it, or that they're even able to stay balanced.
 * Scenery Porn
 * Slave Mooks: Possibly the guards. An interview with Team Ico states that the guards are "not acting fully out of their own intentions".
 * Spiritual Successor: To both Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, as it takes place in the same world and features similar architecture and themes.
 * Torture Porn: The game at times puts a heavy focus on Trico's suffering throughout the game; impaled by arrows, bitten, clawed, thrown off cliffs, its tail pulled off, and at one point you are forced to drop a spiked metal gate on its neck.
 * Uncanny Valley: Invoked in concept by the creators as the reason why Trico is a made-up creature, rather than a dog or something; if he was based on a real animal, people who owned that animal would only notice the pieces that didn't look right.