They Might Be Giants But They Prefer Colossi

Remember ICO? No? Then you only missed out on one of the most profound artistic achievements in the history of video games. With a beautiful soft-color visual design, a curiously ambiguous and atmospheric story, a hauntingly tender soundtrack, and a control system perfectly creative in its simplicity, ICO instantly became a favorite in my PlayStation 2 library from the moment it released in September 2001. How it's managed to stay under the radar all these years is beyond me since it was nominated for "2002 Game of the Year" by both the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and the International Game Developers Association.

Ever since wrapping up ICO, I've been greatly anticipating the next project by its development team at SCEI. Internally titled "NICO" in the early stages of development ("Ni" means "two" in Japanese, so "ni" plus "ICO" equals "NICO," get it?), a curious new name was announced when a teaser video and screenshots were unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show a couple weeks ago: Wanda and the Colossus. While the game seems to continue the same aesthetic design established by ICO, and may even perhaps be set in the same fictional world, the game design for this spiritual successor seems to push in a very different direction. Instead of a quiet, intimate experience as you found in ICO, the focus here will be on action: you'll be battling massive giants across wide landscapes. From what I can gather, you'll need to locate and confront a colossus on horseback, ride in close enough to leap onto it, and then discover and exploit a systematic weakness to bring it down. Sounds like some good fun to me.

Here are some screenshots to show you what I'm talking about:









Doesn't that just look beautiful? I can't wait... Make sure to watch the teaser clip, too:

Wanda and the Colossus teaser