Shadow of The Colossus - Development

Development

With a team of thirty-five people, Shadow of the Colossus began development in 2002 under the project name Nico (a portmanteau of "Next Ico") and was intended to be a sequel to Ico. An early technology demo for the project shown at the DICE Summit in 2003 depicted a group of masked, horned boys riding horses while attacking and defeating a colossus. However, Fumito Ueda expressed that, at the time, it was simpler to reuse the character design of Ico's protagonist, and that he never explicitly desired a sequel to Ico. Japanese pre-orders of Shadow of the Colossus later included a bonus DVD with the concept video, a trailer describing Nico's plot, and an introduction the development team states they wanted to use in Shadow of the Colossus.

Ueda and producer Kenji Kaido held their team to a high standard throughout production. An admitted perfectionist, Ueda felt that only one or two out of 500 artists who applied to work on Shadow of the Colossus met his criteria, and often demanded thorough changes in design until it matched his vision. For his part, Kaido challenged the programmers to meet the concept of realistic physics in relation to the movement of the colossi and the subsequent effect this movement would have for Wander, both in terms of how he might be displaced and how he may be able to use this movement to his advantage. For instance, if a colossus were to shake, Kaido wanted Wander's position to shift realistically in response. Additionally, if a colossus' limb was currently horizontal, Kaido wanted the player to be able to run across the limb as though it were any other flat surface. He referred to these two concepts as "player dynamics and reactions" and "organic collision deformation". The realistic physics engine produced as a result required that faster colossi had to be smaller as well.

Ueda wished the game to have a unique presentation and change how both players and developers perceived the idea of what bosses should be in video games. To achieve this, he ensured that the game's only enemies would be the sixteen colossi, that they could only be approached one at a time, and that they would have various behavior patterns. Though limiting the presence of enemies to only bosses was partly intended to differentiate the game from others, Ueda also expressed that it was to ensure that the programmers' focus was entirely on the colossi so that their quality would be as high as possible. In accordance with this focus upon the colossi—and his preference for simple controls—he intended that one button on the game controller be used solely for targeting the colossi during battles.

A theme of companionship between the player and an AI-controlled partner was a concern for Ueda. In Ico, this theme was presented through the protagonist and the character Yorda, whom the player was required to work with and protect while navigating the game's environments. Similarly, a key element in Shadow of the Colossus is the relationship between Wander and his horse, Agro. Intended to be a realistic representation of a horse, Agro will occasionally ignore commands. In Ueda's words, "a real horse ... doesn't always obey. It's not like a car or a motorcycle, it won't always turn when you say 'turn!'" However, he has admitted that the team had to seek a balance in how often Agro did not respond to commands so as to not sacrifice playability in the pursuit of realism.

All elements of the game—including audio, gameplay and visuals—were used to achieve an atmosphere of a "lonely hero", which Ueda considered important in the development of the game. Lighting, in particular, was used to establish a dark, fearsome setting for the forbidden land, while the protagonist's sword would provide a means of navigation that was "direct and only expressible visually". Like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus uses a distinct style of lighting. The game's engine uses elements such as desaturated colors, motion blur and partial high dynamic range rendering, with a heavy emphasis on bloom lighting.

A PlayStation 3 remastered version of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus was announced at Tokyo Game Show 2010 and released in September 2011. Developed by Bluepoint Games, both were improved graphically to take advantage of the PlayStation 3's hardware and HDTVs, and now run in up to 1920x1080 (Ico) or upscaled from 960x1080 (Shadow of the Colossus), with numerous other improvements implemented.