It has been confirmed by Shuhei Yoshida that teams from across Sony are pitching in and helping with development for the long-delayed title The Last Guardian.
In an interview with Wired, Yoshida explained the current contract situation with Fumito Ueda and the ongoing development of the troubled project.
Yoshida said: "First, let me set some facts straight. There was a rumor that Ueda had left the company, which we confirmed. But it's not like he left the making of The Last Guardian. He's on top of the game and coming into the office. He could be the person who's in the office for the longest time. The difference is that he used to be a regular employee. But now we have a contract to define his role. It's a very special contribution and role that he plays and we agreed, let's make it more official, more special. That's the only difference."
Sony has had to make constant clarifications regarding Ueda's position within Team Ico: "He never left the team, he's on top of the game and the team is making progress. But the progress is slow and sometimes the team has to go back and review things. There's a vision that we want to realize but it's very very tough and technical issue that the team is tackling and some plans have to be made to evaluate and go through the process. At one point the progress was great, so we talked about the timing of the launch in the past. But now it's making progress, but still not to the level - it's playable, but not to the point that we can talk about the timing of launch."
After clarifying the situation about Ueda, Yoshida was asked whether staff from Sony Santa Monica were in Japan helping on the game: "Well, you know, it's not just Santa Monica. We have great tech people in Worldwide Studios. We have a central tech group in the U.S. and the U.K. so we are giving them whatever help they need. Technically, we have the best engineers in the U.S. and Europe, so these teams are helping them, giving advice."
With no release date planned, Sony will be hoping that this level of collaboration will speed development along. There will be plenty of gamers hoping for the exact same thing.