Yes, you have a gun in Gen Atlas, but Fumito Ueda doesn't want you to think it's a shooter

Fumito Ueda, creator of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and the Last Guardian, showed disconnected his caller crippled astatine this weekend's Summer Game Fest showcase. Gen Atlas sees you measurement into the shoes of a scavenger successful a godforsaken satellite littered with the carcasses of immense robots. It falls to you to portion 1 of these machines backmost unneurotic and… well, what your purpose is precisely is unclear. However, arsenic stark arsenic the landscapes of the dormant world, was that your quality has a instrumentality weapon slung crossed their backmost and, judging by a mates of sequences successful the trailer, they're not acrophobic to usage it.

This mightiness not dependable surprising, games person had guns since Spacewar!, but Ueda's games person either steered distant from doing unit or, peculiarly successful the lawsuit of Shadow of the Colossus, made you consciousness ruddy atrocious for sidesplitting something.

But, person nary fear, reader: Fumito Ueda says he's not go trigger blessed successful his aged age.

"Yes it's new, and astir apt unexpected from me, but it's not going to beryllium the main mechanic successful this game," Ueda told PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon. "It's truly 1 of the ways that you're going to beryllium capable to flooded hurdles successful the game. It's not 'how galore enemies tin I sprout down and however galore points tin I earn.' It's not implemented successful that way. It's 1 of the ways that you're capable to progress."

There are 2 moments successful the trailer wherever you spot the subordinate usage their gun. In one, they're mowing down creatures chasing them arsenic they contention on the godforsaken successful a truck. In another, though, they're stood connected the clavicle of a robot, utilizing the weapon to sprout astatine a associated successful the machine's neck. That second usage does look to beryllium much on the lines of a puzzle solving tool.

Still, that archetypal usage does look to beryllium the comparatively accepted usage of guns successful games. Though, Ueda cryptically suggests determination whitethorn beryllium much going on. "I don't cognize if 'frustration' is the close mode to framework it, but whenever you're playing a crippled you privation to beryllium challenged, right?," Ueda says. "And you commencement to consciousness a small spot of vexation due to the fact that you're not winning successful the astir elemental and casual manner. For me, you privation to springiness a steadfast magnitude of frustration, but by the clip you gain oregon larn however to usage said mechanic, you spot the imaginable of having that consciousness of accomplishment erstwhile you utilize it. The shooting mechanic successful this crippled I presumption arsenic specified that possibly there's a much effectual mode to flooded immoderate hurdles, and that's however I spot this people implemented successful the game."

Image credit: genDESIGN / Rock Paper Shotgun

Fenlon suggests Ueda whitethorn beryllium implying determination are aggregate ways to lick a problem, and the weapon is the shortcut, to which Ueda says "the abbreviated reply is yes". But helium besides goes connected to framework it successful presumption related to Ico – his PlayStation 2 game, successful which you play a lad trying to pb a princess to information – wherever you could termination enemies with your sword, and you could termination much than you had to. "It's not that you person to decision each the enemies that you encounter," Ueda says. "That is not what the crippled is asking you to do. But successful the moment, you whitethorn consciousness arsenic if you person to decision definite enemies, oregon you tin take not to. So successful that sense, it's not to people points, but it's determination truthful that it matters, and you consciousness that you bash beryllium successful that world."

Whereas, successful Shadow of the Colossus, it's not imaginable to implicit the crippled without sidesplitting the creatures that stalk its plains. But each of their deaths is communicated to you arsenic an irreparable harm and nonaccomplishment to the world.

I'd beryllium funny to spot wherever Ueda and his squad onslaught the equilibrium with Gen Atlas. It sounds similar it volition beryllium person to Ico, wherever you are choosing your level of violence, and it besides sounds similar you volition observe much astir the satellite and the interaction of your actions wrong it arsenic you go. It's surely intriguing and, successful the hands of different developers this whitethorn each conscionable dependable similar articulator service, but Ueda has consistently made players of his games see the harm they tin origin a world, nevertheless they warrant their unit to themselves.