Sony Santa Monica, others working on The Last Guardian

Sony has brought in western developers to help Team Ico with a mysterious, "very tough and technical issue" plaguing The Last Guardian.

Asked by Wired whether rumours of Sony Santa Monica's involvement with the project were true, Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida spilled the beans.

"It’s not just Santa Monica," he revealed. "We have great tech people in Worldwide Studios. We have a central tech group in the US and the UK so we are giving them whatever help they need.

"Technically, we have the best engineers in the U.S. and Europe, so these teams are helping them, giving advice."

Although Team Ico is making progress, Yoshida made another mention of a major revision which has set development back substantially.

"There’s a vision that we want to realize but it’s very very tough and technical issue that the team is tackling and some plans have to be made to evaluate and go through the process," he said.

Although it's in a working state, Yoshida admitted the game is far from ready to fly.

"At one point the progress was great, so we talked about the timing of the launch in the past. But now it’s making progress, but still not to the level - it’s playable, but not to the point that we can talk about the timing of launch," he said.

Yoshida also reiterated that creator Fumito Ueda is still on board.

"It’s not like he left the making of The Last Guardian. He’s on top of the game and coming into the office," the executive said.

"The difference is that he used to be a regular employee. But now we have a contract to define his role. It’s a very special contribution and role that he plays and we agreed, let’s make it more official, more special. That’s the only difference. He never left the team, he’s on top of the game."