Valve’s Half Life 3; Team ICO’s The Last Guardian; Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XV: What do all of these titles have in common? All of these projects are cancelled, and are being re-purposed into MOBA games.
What is a MOBA game? Created and popularized by Riot Games’ League of Legends, a MOBA is a “My Object is to Betray my Allies” game, where the purpose is to create a team of four white teenager and one Brazilian for them to make fun of, while allowing the enemy team to win and, as a courtesy, saying “I bet you kiss boys” afterwards. For such a high-concept skill-reliant genre, it is a marvel that it has taken off in popularity as well as it has.
Team ICO has shared this exciting news exclusively with us, and we say can only say “Hajimemashite” for the extremely kind favor. Team ICO is a Japanese developer who has created niche PS2 classics such as 2005’s Shadow of the Colossus, as a division of Sony Computer Entertainment. It should come as no surprise that Sony was interested in using the team’s unique talents to their fullest potential on their new PS4 platform, by creating a team-based game with limited world development, and no plot or inherent emotional value. The design description is as follows: “A small 5v5 map based on two opposing teams. A small group of characters called ‘Dreams’ will spawn in each team’s base, which will then march and meet within battlefield “lanes”, where they will crush each other. Alternatively, a player can crush enemy Dreams for money and experience. There will also be Dreams that are neutral to the conflict at hand, which sit between lanes and wait to be crushed by either team.” Team ICO teased us with a few names of the neutral Dreams to be crushed, such as “Vitaversion” and “Eeco Seequel.”
Team ICO plans to formally reveal the official logo for the game at the Tokyo Game Show with no actual gameplay footage. As of now, the official release date of The Last Guardian will be some time in 2011.
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