GenDESIGN

is a Japanese video game designer. Ueda is best known as the director and lead designer of ''Ico'' (2001) and ''Shadow of the Colossus'' (2005) while leading Team Ico at Japan Studio, and ''The Last Guardian'' (2016) through his own development company GenDesign. His games have achieved cult status and are distinguished by their usage of minimal plot and scenario using fictional languages, and use of overexposed, desaturated light. He has been described by some as an auteur of video games.

Biography

Early life

Born in Tatsuno, Ueda graduated from the Osaka University of Arts in 1993. In 1995, after trying to make a living as a visual artist, Ueda decided to pursue a career in the video game industry. He joined video game developer WARP and worked as an animator on the game ''Enemy Zero'' for the Sega Saturn under video game director Kenji Eno. He described his time there as "arduous", as the game was behind schedule and everyone on the project had to work more than normal to meet the release deadline. Eno, who also owned the company, did not think he was that great a digital artist, but handpicked Ueda because of his talent with concepts and design. Ueda worked at the developer for a year and a half.

2000s: Sony

In 1997, Ueda joined Sony Computer Entertainment as a first-party developer. In Sony Computer Entertainment's Japan Studio, he began work on ''Ico''. After ''Ico'', Ueda and his small team, better known as Team Ico, started working on a game originally titled ''NICO'', but later retitled ''Shadow of the Colossus''.

In February 2007, Japanese gaming magazine ''Famitsu'' reported that Ueda and his team were working on a game for the PlayStation 3. No details about the unnamed title were revealed. In 2008, in the August edition of '' PlayStation Magazine'', Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida commented that both ''Ico'' and ''Shadow of the Colossus'' took 4 years to develop as a hint that the game was under production, but was not close to release. The game was revealed at E3 2009 as ''The Last Guardian'', the trailer for which suggests a saga involving elements of both ''Ico'' and ''Shadow of the Colossus'' wherein a young boy resembling Ico partners up with a colossus-sized companion to complete puzzles. Ueda later confirmed ''The Last Guardian'' to be related to the two previous installments.

In an interview with G4tv.com in 2009 he expressed admiration for the method of cut-scene story-telling in Valve's ''Half-Life 2'', and when questioned directly expressed an interest in making a first person game.

2010s-present: GenDesign

Ueda left Sony in December 2011, although he remained under contract to finish work on ''The Last Guardian''. Around mid-2014, he formed GenDesign (stylized as genDESIGN), made up of former members from Team Ico to help complete development of ''The Last Guardian''. At E3 2015, ''The Last Guardian'' was announced for release on October 25, 2016, but was later delayed to December 6, 2016. In September 2018, Ueda revealed that the studio was at the prototyping stage of designing a new game, supported with funding from the investment fund Kowloon Nights. In March 2020, Epic Games announced that they would be fully funding development of it, with the two companies splitting profits in half. In 2021, the new game was teased in one of GenDesign's New Year post cards, which features screenshots from Ueda's three previous games and an unidentified screenshot of a person under a mechanical structure, which is thought to be from the new game.

Influences and style

He described himself as a very inquisitive child saying "I enjoyed catching and keeping living things, such as fish or birds. Other than that, I liked both watching and making animation. Basically, I seemed to be interested in things that moved." Among his favorite subjects in school was art. He commented, "If I was not in the games industry, I would want to become a classical artist. Though I regard not only games but also anything that expresses something – be it films, novels or manga – as forms of art."

Ueda played a lot of Sega Mega Drive games, which influenced his work. He was also a fan of the Amiga computer platformer games '' Flashback'' and '' Another World'' during his teenage years. Other games that influenced his work include ''The Legend of Zelda'', ''Virtua Fighter'', and '' Prince of Persia''. He was also influenced by the work of Kenji Eno, and the manga series ''Galaxy Express 999'' (1977–1981).

Ueda's games are considered to have a very distinctive style, which Ueda himself describes as "design by subtraction", with sparse landscapes, oversaturated lighting and minimalist story to give his games a personal and distinctive feel. Ueda also admitted that, in video games, ideas for a gameplay mechanic should be made first, then complemented by a game's story. In 2008, ''IGN'' ranked Ueda as one of their top 100 game creators of all time, saying that his knack for "creating atmospheric puzzle playgrounds with mute or near-mute characters instills a sense of isolation, yet provides an endearing feeling of hope as the protagonists seek simply to find an exodus or redemption from their weather-worn, ornate prisons".

Works

References

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ueda, Fumito
Japanese video game directors
Japanese video game designers
Living people
Osaka University of Arts alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)