Team ICO boss Fumito Ueda leaves Sony - details

Sony's confirmed that Fumito Ueda has left the company, ending speculation on the Team ICO boss's future.

He will now finish work on The Last Guardian as a freelancer, the company told Gamasutra.

Speculation on his future has been rampant since initial reports of his leaving began circulating late last month. That came before it was announced that TLG producer Yoshifusa Hayama left to join London-based Bossa Studios.

Ueda joined Sony in 1997 after working as an animator for Sega Saturn horror title Enemy Zero at WARP.

In his time at SCEJ and Studio Japan, he formed the internal studio Team ICO, creating arguably two of the best games of all time, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

Team ICO has not seen a game release since Shadow of the Colossus in 2006 in Europe, but has been working on The Last Guardian since then, which was unveiled at E3 in 2009.

The Last Guardian was due for a holiday release this year, but was subsequently delayed into a TBC timeline in the future.