Fumito Ueda, creator of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, has begun work on a brand new game.

Loading

Loading

Speaking to Famitsu (as translated by Gematsu ), Ueda explained that the game is "a completely new title, not a sequel,” and that it's in the prototyping stage.“We’re in a stage of various trials", Ueda explained, adding that his team at genDESIGN is "actually making our ideas to test if they’re interesting or not."Ueda also mentions that the game is currently being backed by game design fund Kowloon Nights, and mentions that "what we’re making now doesn’t feel like an indie game." That seems to point to the fact that Ueda's longstanding partnership with Sony hasn't carried over to the latest game, at least in its early stages.However, the director's keen to make clear that the game won't be a smaller affair for that change: “We’re ultimately aiming for something on the scale of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian [...] If larger-scale development becomes of interest to us, then I think we will significantly expand our development system and take it to a large-scale development team to make it a big game.”As for what the game actually is, that's still up for debate. The closest we've gotten to a concept is a single image posted on the genDESIGN website early this year, which showed a girl staring at a giant, obscured figure. That image was referred to as 'Beauty and the Beast 2018', which some have taken as a working title.Whatever it is, maybe don't hold your breath for release anytime soon - Ueda's last game, The Last Guardian famously took almost 10 years from announcement to release

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and that teaser image makes him think of Little Nightmares, which he is into. Follow him on Twitter