SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS

PS4 enters beast mode Format PS4 ETA TBC 2018 Pub Sony Dev Bluepoint Games

Hot damn. We’ve seen some stunning E3 surprises before – like the shock announcements of Shenmue 3 and Final Fantasy VII Remake from 2015 – but this news is something else entirely. Going into this year’s expo, if you’d asked us which was more likely, a Shadow Of The Colossus PS4 remake or a drive-by simulator starring Spyro, we’d have plumped for the purple dragon getting a GTA-esque reboot.

Epic Spider-Man demo aside, the reveal of this enchanting looking HD remake was easily the highlight of the show. ‘Remake’ really is the word, too. Bluepoint has produced cracking PS3 versions of old PS2 games in the past, but this is no mere prettiedup port, it’s a full-on remake, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida confirmed.

MONSTER REMASH

Every single art asset from the PS2 classic (and subsequent PS3 redux) looks to be getting a thorough overhaul. Textures now look a match for top-tier PS4 fare, while the entire world has been redrawn from scratch. Shimmering water gently ripples in a lake at the base of the third Colossus’ skyscraperhigh arena; delicate flowers push through the ruined coliseum structure the wall-crawling eighth leviathan calls home; a completely reworked lighting model casts a fresh, sinister radiance on Team Ico’s forbidden land.

Bringing Shadow Of The Colossus’s graphics up to modern PS4 standards is swell and all, but we’re hoping Bluepoint ensures this remake also nails a consistent level of performance. The 12-year-old masterpiece was so ambitious it nearly broke PS2 – the battle against the watery basilisk Pelagia was damn near unplayable – so redoing the game from the ground up presents the perfect opportunity to whip Shadow Of The Colossus into shape once and for all. Sure, 2011’s PS3 remaster held pretty closely to 30fps, but we’d love to see the studio deliver 60fps titan-taming action on PS4.

Could Bluepoint even bring back the eight lost Colossi Team Ico scrapped to get the game running on PS2? Let’s cross everything.

“THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO WHIP SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS INTO SHAPE.”