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Game: The Last Guardian by Fumito Ueda

How is the story of The Last Guardian structured?

Introduction:

The Last Guardian starts out by showing what the player would at first assume was an old coin
with sunlight coming through the trees and reflecting off the surface, but as the camera pans
away and shadows of children can be seen on the ground around it, the player realises it is in
fact much bigger than a coin before cutting to the title. This brief cinematic animation creates
several immediate questions. What was that stuck in the ground? Who are the children? After
the title is shown, the game cuts to an animation/montage of creatures we know today but using
their old (possibly Latin) names, before showing historical mythical creatures, going from a
unicorn (Monoceros/Einhorn) and a Gryffin (Gryphus/Grps) all the way to our mythical beast,
Trico. In this moment, the player would realise that The Last Guardian is a game with a mythical
background.

After the creatures montage has finished with Trico, The Last Guardian slyly cuts to the actual
game, without the player realising they have to use their controller to make all the symbols that
are appearing on screen disspearse. If the player takes a bit longer than usual to figure out you
have to use the controller, a prompt will show up telling you what to do, before cutting to another
animated cinematic of a cave of sorts.
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The lighting in the cave is fairly dark with a circle of light peering through a gap in the top, just
enough to illuminate the cave. This lighting and the size of the cave itself may make the player
feel trapped and claustrophobic, and almost taunted with the freedom from the gap where the
light shines.

There isnt any music playing during the cave cinematic, and only the sounds of water droplets
bouncing off of leaves and the tweeting of birds can be heard, increasing the players feeling of
being trapped, probably out in the middle of nowhere going by the audio. The sounds also make
the player feel isolated, but at the same time can make them feel peaceful and relaxed. When
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the sound of chains moving occurs, along with the onscreen image of the chain leading from the
light into the darkness, creates a sense of thrill. Who or what is moving

Be among the chosen ones is the first dialogue the player hears from the narrator, which is
spoken in actual gibberish, as Fumito Ueda invents a language for his games. This line is
spoken as the boy comes into shot on the screen, lying unconscious on the floor of the cave.
The boy wakes up during the cinematic, in the cave seemingly alone, the voice of a much older
man narrating over the scene and speaking in first person. The player may or not notice the
(not-so-subtle subtle) difference between the narrators voice and the players character, but if
they dont at first, they will eventually. This difference gives rise to 2 questions in particular: Are
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the narrator and the character the same person? If so, is the game a memory of the narrators
past?

Enigmas:

In The Last Guardian, the enigmas are more environmental puzzles, where you have to figure
out where to go in order to trigger the answer or next part of the puzzle, using the whole
environment. These enigmas are solved through Trico and the boy working together, utilizing
Tricos sheer size and jumping/flying abilities and the boys small and nimble figure. For
example, one enigma during the game requires the boy to crawl through a small tunnel in the
wall, which is only just big enough for the boy to fit through, to retrieve a mirror which will be
used at several points throughout the game from then on. The core element of The Last
Guardian is the boys interaction with Trico, who he can climb and ride.
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Narrative:

The narrative of the game does not rely on the player or their choices in any way, as it is a
structured game going from point A to B, although point B isnt all that clear at times. The
narrative/game itself has a complete closure, leaving the player emotional but on the whole
content with ideally little questions, other than the obvious I wonder how both their lives panned
out from there that all games that adopt the memory narrative style often leave the player
wondering. The Last Guardian is quite rightly a closed narrative with a definite closure, leaving
no room for a variety of probable outcomes and endless gameplay without restrictions.

Representation in the game

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Fumito Ueda wanted to create a game that focused on representing the interactions and
relations between a human and a creature based on feedback and reviews from his previous
games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus where players had become emotionally invested in
the relation between the character Wander and Agro, Wanders horse in Shadow of the
Colossus and used this as inspiration when designing and creating The Last Guardian. Fumito
Ueda stressed that the central theme of The Last Guardian is the developing emotional
attachment between Trico and the boy. The relationship between Trico and the boy is
determined by the player to an extent, depending on how the player interacts with Trico, and
Ueda described the relationship between the boy, Trico and the human guards as a game of
rock-paper-scissors that changes throughout the game.

The Last Guardian provides an overally positive and even inspiring representation of the
interactions and relations between humans and creatures, despite communication barriers.