It’s been six years since PlayStation nuked its forums, taking with it one of video gaming’s most legendary communities – a team of dedicated secret-hunters convinced Fumito Ueda’s Shadow of the Colossus held one last mystery, and who invested almost a decade trying to find it. And now, speaking to Eurogamer following the reveal of his latest game Gen Atlas, Ueda has shared his thoughts on the fascination his acclaimed games have inspired among fans.
Eurogamer contributor Craig Owens documented the lengthy search for Shadow of the Colossus’ final secret in 2013, explaining, “Secret-seekers had found a home on Sony’s official forums, where they congregated in order to figure out where [the game’s] remaining secrets and Easter Eggs might be. Early speculation fixated on the idea that there was a way to climb beyond the top of the secret garden, to the roof of the temple beyond. More ambitious secret-seekers hoped that… players could somehow unlock a secret ending to the game. And the most fanciful theory of all was that there was a hidden 17th colossus, somewhere in the Forbidden Lands.”
By the time Owens’ article was published, the consensus among secret-searchers seemed to be the game had likely finally been picked clean, and there was little left to be revealed. However, that didn’t stop the thread that started it all from continuing for another few years before the closure of PlayStation’s official forums in 2020. But what does Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda make of the impact his games have had on players and players-turned-secret-hunters, and of the continued fascination his worlds have inspired? Eurogamer put the question to him during Summer Game Fest.
“I feel so fortunate that there are people that still continue to look for things that could be hidden,” he explained via translator. “I’m just thankful they want to be with the world, with the experience that they want to tie themselves back to and belong. That makes me very happy.”
“When I’m a consumer of any other entertainment, not just games but with film,” he continued, “I’m drawn into those stories or pieces of work that continue to look for what is either not said or shown, or I have to go look for. To me, that’s entertainment that’s very well done and very well crafted. So people are experiencing the same thing with my games: that only shows their interest goes very deep and I can very much appreciate that feeling that they have.”
Ueda added that when he’s creating his games, “my hope is that the takeaway, or how you are left feeling, is you ask yourself the question, can this – or does this – world really exist? Is it believable, is it grounded in the reality of that world? Yes there’s that sense of wonder but will you think about the world many years later? And if the answer to that is yes then I feel like I’ve delivered on the experience that I wanted to build.”
And Shadow of the Colossus appeared to do just that. As one secret-hunter mused to Eurogamer in 2013 when all the game’s mysteries had seemingly been laid bare, “It was the search that was the thing… it’s like a Rorschach test, people imprint whatever hopes and beliefs they have onto the vast empty landscapes and see secrets that aren’t there – they just hope they are.”
Ueda’s next game, Gen Atlas, looks to continue the famed designer’s knack for creating intriguing, enticing worlds. It’s coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and the Epic Games Store on PC at some unannounced point in the future, and if you’ve been wondering about that unusual name, Ueda recently told Eurogamer it means more than you might think.
