Sony confirms departure of Fumito Ueda

Fumito Ueda, the revered creator of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, has left Sony Computer Entertainment after 14 years at the company.

Rumours of Ueda's departure surfaced earlier this month, swiftly followed by the resignation of Yoshifusa Hayama, the executive producer on Ueda's highly anticipated The Last Guardian.

The news was confirmed to Gamasutra by Sony Computer Entertainment, who also revealed that Ueda is "committed to completing" The Last Guardian as a contractor.

Ueda is arguably Sony's most celebrated developer, but he only completed two games in his 14 years at the company: Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

The Last Guardian was first revealed in May 2009. Since then, information on its progress has been difficult to find, and its absence from E3 and the Tokyo Game Show this year prompted speculation as to the state of the project.

The sources who initially revealed Ueda's decision to leave claimed that he was motivated by the desire to work on more personal projects.