ULTIMATE GUIDE
ICO
THERE WERE NO GAMES ON THE PLAYSTATION 2 QUITE LIKE ICO. DESIGNED WITH A DELIBERATELY UNDERSTATED BEAUTY, IT WOULD LATER HAVE A MASSIVE INFLUENCE ON MODERN GAME DESIGNERS, SOME OF WHOM WE HEAR FROM HERE AS WE DELVE DEEP INTO FUMITO UEDA’S WONDERFULLY ATMOSPHERIC DEBUT
Words By Graham Pembrey
Near the beginning of Ico you find yourself leaping across a broken bridge before gesturing to your companion – a ghostly, glowing girl named Yorda – to take a leap of faith and join you. When she hesitantly jumps but falls short, you reach out and haul her away from the deep chasm below to safety. The scene plays out like an impressive setpiece on first encounter. But you soon discover there are many surprising, dramatic moments like this on the paths Ico leads you down, giving the experience a cinematic feel that stood out in the PlayStation 2 era and feels more akin to modern game design when you play it today.
That Ico has influenced the creation of some huge contemporary games is in no doubt. Dark Souls auteur Hidetaka Miyazaki described Ico as, “The game that changed my life,” while The Last Of Us creator Neil Druckman called it, “A source of inspiration and my favourite game of all time.” It’s often celebrated as an exemplar of minimalist design, offering very little dialogue, no health meter and no immersion-breaking guidance on how to play. You’ll also find that every object you come across as you explore the atmospheric castle is there for a reason. The environmental storytelling and subtle puzzles are held up as part of what made the game so quietly special.
Given this important legacy and the ambitious design that made Ico so impactful, it’s amazing to think it began development as a game for the original PlayStation with its relatively constrained hardware capabilities. Director and lead designer Fumito Ueda conceived of the concept in 1997 and began realising his vision with producer Kenji Kaido one year later as part of a team within Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Japan Studio that would become known as Team Ico. The team worked by creating “concept movies” they could use to demonstrate their vision for the look and feel of the game, before building these cinematic demos into interactive experiences. Late in 1999, they decided to shift development to the PlayStation 2 to overcome technical barriers and get closer to their goal.