In Seattle, last month, I talked to Mac Walters about this. He's writing next year's Mass Effect 2 from BioWare. The studio he works for is known for telling long, detailed stories through its video games. The Mass Effect and Jade Empire, to name a pair of recent releases, are crammed with optional, explanatory text. The games' characters are often ready to provide richer detail about their lives, their tribes, or their home planets than the plot requires.

"A lot of the reason that stuff is in there is because we have players who want to know everything and love that," Walters said. He believes that the details BioWare provide bring some of their players back to "the days they picked up their Dungeons and Dragons [source]books and read about every character in there."

That deep level of extra narrative detail may be a BioWare signature, but it's not a BioWare exclusive.

Consider this sampling of late 2009 games: If you find hidden treasures in Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2, you'll be prompted to press a button to learn background information about them. Snoop through the spaceship Ishimura in EA's Dead Space Extraction and you can find text and audio logs that elaborate on the events that preceded your arrival. Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum overflows with dozens of discoverable recordings of its colorful secondary characters revealing their deranged states of mind.

It is so common for games to provide all these extra details that I had begun to look at Fumito Ueda as the most unusual of game creators.

The Sony developer's games, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, explain almost nothing. Their heroes are ciphers, their side-characters almost mute. They include no scrolls, no tablets and no scannable objects.

They let you wonder. Or, to put it another way, Ueda's games seldom explain anything.

I talked to Ueda about the propensity of other developers to include a lot of background detail. They do it differently than you, I said. They explain the backgrounds of every character and every sword.

"But I think what it's trying to achieve is the same goal [as me,]" Ueda said. "I think having information about the sword or the character history is trying to add realism to the game as much as possible. And that's just one method of doing it, to have text and characters speaking. But that's not the way I chose to go with my games. I'm focusing on realism of the image itself." His realism, as he put in the context of developing his team's next game, The Last Guardian, comes from a style of graphics and animation that can convey emotion and a sense of presence in an imaginary world.

Back in Seattle earlier in the month, Walters from BioWare had advocated a sense of mystery but explained the challenges of not explaining things. "It's always a balancing act between what can be mysterious and what can't be," he said. "If it's something the player has to know, we need to find a way to make sure a player knows it. Sometimes that even involves repetition because, if the player misses it, then they're just confused and frustrated. But there are things we can sort of leave hanging. That's something I'm personally a fan of. If I see it in my work or the writer's work, I'm fine with leaving it in there. As long as we resolve it at some point or there's a plan to resolve it at some point."

Explain the key stuff, he said. Leave the rest of it optional.

The game designer told G4 that he is interested in making a first-person shooters game. Just listen to him say it: "I have an interest in making first-person game." Ueda cites Valve's Half-Life series as FPS games he enjoy, remarking that, "Usually, you have to incorporate storytelling with constraints, but the way...[Valve] implemented constraints was something different that I enjoyed, compared to other games."

But what kind of first person game would Ueda make?

"[If] ...you're in the middle of play, in the middle of the game, then all of a sudden you're in a cut-scene [and] you're not supposed to operate at all - that's not the kind of game I want to do. If there is some other techniques that will not give them that kind of feeling, that's something I want to implement."

Hey man, do it, do it, do it.

Currently Ueda and his time are hard at work on the upcoming PS3 exclusive The Last Guardian.

Update: Edited title and post.

Fumito Ueda's A Big Half-Life 2 [G4 via Dtoid via Kombo]

Ueda indicated that he will play some role in the creation of the April-announced Shadow of the Colossus movie. The project would turn into a movie the Ueda-directed 2005 PS2 adventure that featured a boy wandering the plains, hunting quiet lumbering beasts. "It won't be that I'm completely not involved," he said of the film.

The developer shied away from providing details about the planned movie.

The spring announcement of the Hollywood project was received skeptically among gamers scorched by a film industry that has failed to make good movies about games half as subtle and respected as Shadow of the Colossus. Ueda's apparent involvement in the film, if significant enough, could calm some of that concern.

Ueda also provided us a minor update on the future of both Shadow of the Colossus and its predecessor, Ico, on modern video game systems. Both games are considered modern classics and are at least thematically linked to Ueda and Team Ico's next project, The Last Guardian. (Read Ueda talk more about The Last Guardian.) The recent announcement of a slightly-enhanced port of the PS2 God of War games to the PS3 has compelled gamers to buzz about their hope for a similar compilation port of the PS2's Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. The developer wants it to happen too.

"I do have an interest in that," Ueda said during our Friday chat. "Next week, I'll have a meeting [about the possibility] ... But it might not be so easy, because, with both titles we really stretched the limits of the PS2. It's complex. So it's not such an easy transfer to the PS3. But I want to discuss it."

The work of Ueda's team lives on in many discussions about the best video games of the past decade. At TGS, Ueda gave signs that that work may also have a good future on the big screen and on the PS3 as well.

Watch the trailer for Fumito Ueda's next game for a while and you'll be left with questions. His team's new game is an enigma, a PlayStation 3-exclusive successor to Ueda's pair of PS2 games, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Those games were quiet, softly-lit adventures in crumbled castles and open fields. This one appears to follow suit, possibly — Ueda won't confirm more than what our eyes can see — following the adventures of boy and his large, furry creature companion.

The creature has proved to be captivating to those getting excited about the game.

"The idea behind the creature, for me, it is based on a cat," Ueda said through a translator during a sit-down chat with Kotaku in a meeting room at this year's Tokyo Game Show. "Whether it looks like it or not is up to the viewers of the game. But to me it looks like a cat, mixing in other elements from household pets like birds and dogs, mixing in some of the cute aspects of those types of animals." Gamers could be forgiven from seeing a lot of bird in it. The creature is called Torico in Japanese. "Tori" is the Japanese word for bird.

Torico, or Trico as it is being called in English, is, nevertheless, a cat to him. What Ueda thinks it is is important, of course. But the fact that its creator seems unbothered that other people might see it differently is an Ueda signature. His games are not made to declare, but to suggest . Maybe the boy hunting colossal giants is a hero. Maybe he is a villain. The lines of definition are soft, the sunlight on the scene grayed.

During our interview in Tokyo, Ueda himself defined just general aspects of The Last Guardian, offering the shapes of his ideas but not the details within them.

The new game will be single-player, he said. Its title will mean a lot of things, none of which he is ready to reveal. Despite the fact that its star creature is called Trico (an allusion to "third Ico"), the new game is not necessarily closely linked to its predecessors. "Narratively there is no initial connection there," Ueda said, "But there might end up being some connection there."

The game has been anticipated by gamers since the 2005 release of Shadow of the Colossus. Long awaited, this project's debut nevertheless proved awkward. On the eve of its official trailer unveiling by Sony at this year's E3 trade show, a similar trailer featuring more primitive art, leaked online.

That trailer leak was a hurtful moment for Ueda, who still doesn't know how it happened. "We were really working hard to make the movie on time for E3," he said. "I had slept in the office the day before. I woke up, and, in the morning, we saw this information on the Internet. It really felt like a nightmare, because we were just waking up."

Earlier than expected, the leaked trailer had forced Ueda to process the anxiety he had about the game's debut. "Because Shadow of the Colossus was more of a combat-focused game and Last Guardian, from the trailer, looked more like Ico — and had a more of a subdued tone to it — I thought maybe there would be some negative feedback to that," he said. "But there wasn't really much of that... I was happy because there were generally good comments about it."

The trailer's echoes of Ico implied that the new game would share with the old game themes of companionship and exploration, moving at a slower pace. "It wouldn't be wrong to interpret it like that, but with Ico we had some technical limitations to what we could do with the PS2. There's a lot more we can do with the PS3 so there can be more dynamic developments in the game."

Many game designers talk about the opportunity for this generation's gaming hardware to make their games look better. Ueda believes that his team's first foray on the PS3 can the improvement in visuals his team can attain on the machine will improve a key aspect to his games. "I think with the added capabilities of the PS3 can increase the feeling of something [in the game] really existing," he said. "I think you can create more emotion with the story as well as with the characters."

While the PS3 may help his game feel more alive, there's something else, of about the same size as Sony's console, that might also help The Last Guardian feel more alive: His cat.

"I started to own a cat around the same time as starting Torico and it's been kind of a sample reference creature for me," Ueda said. His cat's named Royce, and while she likes to be petted when she wants food, she's otherwise content to leave Ueda alone.

Ueda apologized for not being able to say more about the game. Who knows what his cat even knows about it? He promised more information for the future, but at TGS, it was just his presence and vision that may convince gamers that The Last Guardian is on the right path.

The alleged trailer for "Project TRICO," by way of PlayStation Lifestyle, begins with a scene that might be familiar to followers of Team ICO's work. The PlayStation developer teased the opening imagery in a job recruiting ad that ran last year. The rest will look completely new.

The Project TRICO trailer shows the interaction of a young boy who bears a striking resemblance to the lead character in ICO and a giant animal that looks part feline, part rodent—a giant feathery, furry thing that has clearly had its wings clipped. The trailer shows off possible gameplay mechanics that fit in with previous Team ICO games, namely cooperative platforming over architecture that fits in aesthetically with the series.

The purported teaser also highlights thematic elements present in ICO and Shadow of the Colossus—the latter, at one point, code-named "NICO"—and looks like it could fit in the same universe.

Team ICO lead Fumito Ueda spoke briefly about the still unannounced game at this year's Game Developers Conference, saying "the essence of the game is similar to ICO."

We've contacted Sony Computer Entertainment America reps to verify if the trailer is genuine.

Project Trico - HD [YouTube]

It was actually Suda who asked the question on everybody's mind "Can you tell us about the new games you're working on?" fielding the request to his co-panelists Pagliarulo and Ueda.

Pagliarulo said, safely, that "We're working on lots of [Fallout 3] DLC. Future Fallout games? Who knows, but there are a lot of ideas brewing upstairs." Ueda, however, was even less forward.

Ueda first warned "I think there are Sony Japan bosses are here, so I better not say too much."

"Probably, it will be similar to... um," Ueda said "Well, the essence of the game is similar to ICO."

"Who is your partner?" Suda prodded.

"Don't ask me anymore!" Ueda begged, clearly not ready to talk about his follow up to Shadow of the Colossus.

Suda offered to throw himself on the spike, saying that Grasshopper collaborator Shinji Mikami was "working on a horror game." Unfortunately, that's something we knew long ago, as it was revealed to be in that genre when EA announced its partnership with the Japanese developer.

Guess we'll have to wait a little longer to see what Team ICO is hard at work on.

Fumito Uedo will be on hand at the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next month to speak on a panel on evolving game design, along with Goichi Suda of No More Heroes and Killer 7 fame and Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo. Just getting those three minds into one room is exciting enough, but it raises the possibilities that the new PlayStation 3 game from Team Ico could be revealed at the show.

Last we heard regarding the next ICO game was back before the Tokyo Game Show last year, when Uedo said that the game would be shown sometime soon. Is next month sometime soon enough for you guys?

ICO creator to speak at GDC [Eurogamer]

I’m not feeling any pressure at the moment because time is not critical yet...Production has not reached the critical stage. The company is very reasonable thanks to my achievements in the past. So, although I do get pressurised, that’s not happened yet [on the current project], and that’s something I feel gratitude for, that the company gives us the opportunity to focus by giving us time.

Reasonable? REASONABLE? Goddamnit, Sony, you get in there, and you crack that whip. On a related topic, Ueda also said that, given the time, he'd love to someday work on a small-scale game for the PSN. Yes. Given the time.

Team Ico boss: My PS3 game hasn’t hit critical development yet [gamesTM, via VG247]

They are working on a title. I started the ICO project. Ueda-san joined my team in Japan as a cinematic animator, but he created a short movie and presented it to me and said, ‘I want to make this game.’ I said, ‘Yes, let’s do it, but you have never made a game. We have to have experienced people do it,’ so it took a while, recruiting one person at a time. And because Fumito Ueda doesn’t compromise, we had to move the development from PSone to PlayStation 2. Then I couldn’t complete the game because I moved to the United States. It took four years and the second game took four years too. So I started calling them the ‘Olympic Team.’ They haven’t released a PS3 title yet — of course not — they’ll take four years! But they have something really, really good on the way.

Then patient we will be!

They have something really, really good on the way [NeoGAF via VG247]

It's just as enjoyable as the translated Ueda piece , but might have less of an immediate impact, partially because we get to hear from Barlog and his peers fairly often, while it's a rare treat to have the opportunity to hear from the creator of two of the best PlayStation 2 games of all time. Regardless, it's a good read, only because Barlog's entry about his personal discovery of the beautiful intricacies of SotC's gameplay is so easy to relate to.

God of the Colossus [Don't Play Games With Me!]

Unfortunately, some of Ueda's comments are rather vague—his comments about the recycling of game assets and code, for example—possibly with some of the finer details lost in translation, but it's still a good read.

This—video game developers discussing their own work in the terms of their peers—is something I'd definitely like to see more of. You can read the translated interview with Ueda at God of War II director Cory Barlog's blog.

Ico of War! [Don't Play Games With Me!]