The Last Guardian is now in a 're-engineering' phase, says Yoshida

Despite ongoing comments suggesting development of The Last Guardian is on hiatus, the title is currently being re-engineered by a "well-staffed" team at Sony, company head Shuhei Yoshida told GamesIndustry.biz during this year's TGS.

While Yoshida offered no hints regarding what in the long-silent development was specifically being re-engineered, he states Sony is waiting to re-introduce the game "in an appropriate way," said Yoshida.

"So, we're waiting for the right time to re-introduce The Last Guardian in an appropriate way," he said. "I can't... Well, the game is in development, and it's well staffed, and [Fumito] Ueda-san is here, working - even though he's not a Sony employee, he's dedicated to the product. But we're not ready to update yet."

Yoshida once again states the game has never been on hiatus, adding that its team of developers have "always been here."

"They're going through the re-engineering of the game, so the team size is smaller, because it's more engineering focused right now," he added.

Yoshida first commented on the game's suspected hiatus status in June following comments made by Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Jack Tretton. According to Yoshida, Tretton's comments were "misleading," saying the game is very much in active development.

"That hiatus term - I'm not a native English-speaking person - but that's misleading," Yoshida said. "The game is in active development. [Fumito] Ueda-san shared updates a few months ago. Nothing has changed. My answer is, 'Yes, the game is in active development.' It's not hiatus at all. But we are not ready to reintroduce it. When we are ready, we will do that. Please wait."

In August, Ueda stated that while The Last Guardian is still in development, titles including Knack and Puppeteer were taking precidence at SCE Japan Studio.