In a tweet from GenDesign’s official Twitter account, the studio wished fans a Happy New Year. The tweet also revealed that the studio is finally ready to “deliver a lot of topics to everyone.” “It’s finally a year where we can deliver a lot of topics to everyone! We are doing our best, so please look forward to it,” GenDesign tweeted. “Thank you for your continued support in the year.”
いよいよ皆様にたくさんの話題をお届けできる一年に！と頑張っておりますので、ぜひご期待ください。本年もよろしくお願い申し上げます。 genDESIGNでは現在開発中のプロジェクトに向けキャリア・新卒を問わず仲間を募集しています。https://t.co/jKIVMfFWuK pic.twitter.com/bUu5TODraB — genDESIGN (@genDESIGN_Inc) December 31, 2022 Ueda founded GenDesign after working with Sony’s Japan Studio for over a decade. The team helped develop The Last Guardian alongside Japan Studio to fulfill Ueda’s contractual obligations with Sony. GenDesign is currently recruiting developers to be part of GenDesign. A recruitment link is part of the New Year’s tweet. Unfortunately, the job posting did not give clues on what projects the studio is working on. Aside from The Last Guardian, Ueda is also best known for developing Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Ico is a minimalist action-adventure game from 2001 which had a “boy meets girl” concept. Ico is also the name of the protagonist. He sets off on an adventure to free a girl named Yorda from the clutches of an evil Queen. Meanwhile, Shadow of the Colossus is a 2005 open-world action-action adventure game and was billed as the spiritual successor of Ico. Although it gained critical acclaim, it couldn’t quite replicate the success of Ico. However, it’s become recognized as an influential title, even with all the content that was found to have been cut from the final product. Projects helmed by Ueda typically have a long development cycle. The Last Guardian was announced in 2009 but was only released in 2016. It is not surprising that GenDesign has not had a new title since the release of The Last Guardian. GenDesign may have been stealthily developing or planning new game titles since the studio is looking to expand its manpower. In 2020, Epic Games announced that it is funding and publishing the next title being developed by the studio. In 2021, GenDesign also teased a new game in one of the studio’s New Year postcards. The postcard contained screenshots of the three previous games that Ueda worked on along with an image from an unidentified game. The image was of a person under a mechanical structure.
