As part of the Italian press tour for Shadow of the Colossus, Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido visited the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe headquarters in Rome. Vincenzo Aversa, journalist, had the chance to ask the developers a few questions about the game and their philosophy of games design.
Vincenzo Aversa: Shadow of the Colossus looks more like art than a game. It’s an alternative way to look at video games. Why do you think no one ever tried to do something similar?
Fumito Ueda: Usually, studios have to abide to staple formats when developing games. At Sony we found an attitude where we can develop new concepts. Sony itself helps us bring our games to life.
VA: So Sony does not restrict you and they let you do what you want?
FU: Yes, always.
VA: One of the things which hit you in Shadow of the Colossus is the architecture. Did you use base it on any actual style or did you let your imagination run wild?
FU: There are hints of styles I saw and read about in the past but everything you see in the game started in my head.
VA: The horse’s animations and controls are amazing. How comes you put so much attention to something that in other games would be considered secondary?
Kenji Kaido: First of all we have to explain why there is the horse. We believe that the main character in a story must always have a partner to be complete. Even from the visual point of view, the image we get is much more positive: the loyal horse is always at the hero’s side when he needs him. Also, the horse’s animations were not done using motion capture but were created manually. This was done so that every single animation resulted believable at all times. To achieve this we had all the team members study horse riding. That is why the controls are so realistic.
VA: The death of each colossus is a dramatic event. The images are shocking. Which message were you trying to portray?
KK: In reality we wanted two things. The first was that enemies in games shouldn’t always be considered as the ones doing wrong. Secondly, when you beat an opponent you would normally feel satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. We wanted the player to feel something new; that the death of each colossus was more of a sad thing. At the end of the game, when all enemies are killed this feeling is very strong.
VA: We spent a lot of the time stopping and turning the camera around for the simple reason to admire the scenery. Did you ever think to implement a photography mode?
FU: Yes, we thought about that but do you think that would fit in a game like this? It seemed rather unnatural to include such a mode. Also, technically we wouldn’t have enough memory to put such a feature in action. We (ab)used the hardware to its limits to create the world and its characters.
VA: How do you convey emotions in a video game?
FU: I think that it’s very different from film and other types of media. In a video game it is imperative to let the player immerse himself in the game world. There has to be a bond between the player and the characters. That’s how we work.
VA: What will you do next?
KK: At the moment we’re working on the European version of the game. When that’s done we’ll start thinking of what to do next. We already have some ideas…
VA: But should we expect games outside the normal conventions? Or will you do something more casual?
FU: Well, maybe both. We want to continue doing high quality games and we want to come up with realistic worlds. But we could also end up working on something completely different. I don’t know if they’d let us though. (laughs)
