Fumito Ueda on Gen Atlas: ‘I give my absolute everything because there may not be a next’
The Shadow of the Colossus creator shares mysterious details on his sci-fi adventure
Fumito Ueda is one of the most respected auteurs in gaming. And like most influential creators, the Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian director won’t be rushed.
But don’t call him a perfectionist.
“I never go into a project thinking that I’m going to take a lot of time,” he tells VGC at Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, following the reveal of his latest game, the sci-fi title Gen Atlas, a decade after his last title released for PlayStation 4, which itself came a decade after the previous.
“Personally, I do want to make games as fast and to my vision as quickly as possible. The results do speak for themselves, though, and the reason for that, I think, just has to do with trying to aim as close as I can to get them to my vision, even though there are hurdles.”
Ueda is adored by fans and critics for his influential PlayStation trilogy, developed at the now-closed Sony Japan studio. The designer was an outside contractor for most of the later years of his PlayStation tenure, and around a decade ago formed his own company, GenDesign.
For the first few years of its existence, Ueda says he was mostly distracted by the realities of establishing a standalone game studio, and development on Gen Atlas didn’t start until around 2020 (“so, it may seem like a long time, but compared to The Last Guardian, it’s actually not as long,” he says).
Gen Atlas sees the player character awaken on a vast, abandoned planet littered with the remains of colossal robots. As players follow the trail of ruins, they’ll eventually harness the power of these robots to forge new paths and transform the world around them.
“Wanting to build something around giant robots was the first thing,” Ueda says of the project’s origins. “And then I sort of looked at what was going to fit the story. It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to create a sci-fi setting.
“Personally, I do want to make games as fast and to my vision as quickly as possible. The results do speak for themselves, though”
“I came up with the giant robots first and then looked at what kind of universe, what kind of world, what kind of mood or tone was going to work for this experience. And so naturally, it started to go in the direction of what we see today, which is very much sci-fi.”
In gameplay footage seen by VGC behind closed doors, the sci-fi protagonist clambers and boost-jumps over rocky terrain and ancient mechanical trash, eventually piloting the giant robots to shoot and smash through scenery, or soar through the sky, high above the landscape.
GenDesign isn’t revealing details on how Gen Atlas will actually play, telling VGC there’s still a lot of the final experience it’s deliberately leaving secret. However, with its scale, mystery, and quiet wonder, Atlas is clearly evocative of Ueda’s past titles.
“I want the feeling of you playing and thinking that this is very fresh, but at the same time it evokes curiosity as to how you’re going to be playing and navigating through this world,” Ueda says of the gameplay experience. “It’s just really important that that is why I create what I create.
“There is probably a level of familiarity with what you do in a gameplay sense. But using something that’s familiar, but adding a unique twist or refining what is already known, is still allowing it to stand out as being fresh. That’s what I am keeping in mind when I’m designing the gameplay experience for Gen Atlas.”
The creator says he’s happy for fans to consider it the fourth entry in a ‘quadrilogy’, even if it wasn’t designed to directly tie to Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, and The Last Guardian.
“I came up with the giant robots first and then looked at what kind of universe, what kind of world, what kind of mood or tone was going to work”
“Every time I’ve started a new project, the attempt is that I am going to create something different,” he said. “But I think it goes without saying that there’s a style or kind of my niche that you see throughout the three previous titles, and perhaps you do see in our latest title.
“My initial approach is that I want to make something different, but then as I’m developing it, there are little triggers that feel like, oh, maybe this is a link to something I’ve done before, and then I do kind of look back and maybe try to make those links happen, but it’s not from the get-go.
“For Gen Atlas, I would say that there’s no direct sort of narrative link or connection, but I think it’s pretty obvious that my sort of interest in wanting to bring in giant, in this case, robots or giant creatures in previous titles. If players feel this could be a core to a quadrilogy, then I have no complaints, I would welcome that impression from the player side.”
Notably, Gen Atlas is published by Epic Games, and is releasing on multiple platforms for the first time in Ueda’s career. It’s clear the Unreal Engine firm is throwing some weight behind the project, not least because of the bus-sized robot head at the entrance to Summer Game Fest’s Play Days.
“They’ve been very, very supportive of the project and us at the studio,” Ueda says. “And in terms of the creative freedom that I’ve been given, I also have no complaints there because it’s not like as a publisher they come in and want to give us feedback that’s going to change the course of our direction or vision.
“But for me personally, that’s always been the case even when I was at Sony. So I think I’ve just been in a very fortunate and thankful position that the support team around me has really been behind and pushed my vision forward to make the best experience possible.”
“If players feel this could be a core to a quadrilogy, then I have no complaints, I would welcome that impression from the player side.”
Ueda claims the experience of developing Gen Atlas hasn’t been significantly different to how he worked with Japan Studio in the past, because his team at Sony already had strong autonomy within PlayStation.
One thing that has changed is how the fandom around Ueda’s titles influences his approach to game design. Ueda’s art house trilogy have dedicated fans who pore through every detail and share theories on how they could narratively connect. Ueda admits this is something he was aware of when building Gen Atlas.
“Knowing that the loyal fans do look for the details is something I’m very mindful of, and I am conscious of,” he says.
“If I make that more of a core or essential thing as I’m designing the game, it would probably risk breaking the balance between the game mechanics, the story, and the surrounding setting, so I may not look into it as deep as maybe the fans want me to.
Guns ready
One element of the Gen Atlas trailer that surprised fan was its shooting gameplay – a rarity in Ueda’s games.
“Of course, I play shooting games as a player myself, so I’m familiar with them,” he explains. “If we were to imagine putting that into any of my previous games, it just wouldn’t have worked, in terms of the setting, style, and narrative. So that’s why it didn’t appear in my previous games.
“But as I said earlier, as I was thinking about giant robots, and slowly but surely the direction of what is this universe and world was, it made sense to me. And it’s only a natural element that I can, without forcing and without hesitation, add into this world.”
“But I’m very happy that they see things in my game that could be a very common theme or a core, so I do want to present that in a way that it would be welcome in my next game as well.”
The game designer says he’s aware that, at age 56, the decade turnaround between his recent titles could well mean that Gen Atlas is one of his last. However, Ueda claims this sense of fragility is something is a mindset he’s always carried.
“Yes, I am mindful, but that goes with every single game and project I work on,” he says. “Every time I’m making something, you never know when or if there’s a next.
“And what I mean by that is that it has to do with how the game, the title, the experience is perceived, how well it’s ranked or sold, and you never know if there is another chance.
“So I give it my absolute everything for every single project that I’ve done to date, and that is exactly the same that I’m doing with Gen Atlas as well.”
For his next game, Ueda says, of course, it would benefit from great reviews and sales, but the designer is more concerned with being satisfied with the final project when it eventually comes out (which is “closer than you might think”, according to publisher Epic).
“Great sales and great reviews would contribute to this project’s success, but for me, if I’m happy and satisfied with what I make, to me, that’s the greatest success for this project,” he says.
”That’s not to say that it needs to be perfect. For example, the trailer that we showed at Summer Game Fest, we all worked with deadlines. We put in everything we possibly could to achieve the best results.
“So it’s not like I’m looking for perfection, but I’m looking for what we can achieve with the time that we have. And if at the end I’m happy, then that’s what success means for this project.”
