A Guide to the ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ (2018)
Video games have a way of sticking with people for years at a time, sometimes decades. The 2005 Team ICO Shadow of the Colossus release is one of those games that just never disappears from the conversation about what constitutes a quality video game, what good storytelling looks like.
Thankfully, Sony has given another generation the chance to live through the cryptic storytelling within Shadow. Bluepoint games has completely remade the game – not just a simple rerelease or HD remaster. The game’s original graphics are intricately remapped and detailed, the world has been recast in an immersive and believable way, and the design team has cleverly integrated easter eggs and lore into this 2018 release.
Think of this article as a guide through (what I consider to be) the most valuable resources for Shadow of the Colossus once you’ve finished it’s story. With many games nowadays, there’s a tragic lack of communality with contemporary releases. It used to be the case that, if you played video games, you’d be able to riff about the latest releases. Not anymore. Which is a great sign of how successful, diverse and expansive the video game market has become. But the lack of community is a bit diminishing to the whole groundswell of camaraderie and emotional support that used to surround the discussions of video games. Here’s my attempt at that.
Without a doubt, the most comprehensive and detailed explorations and analyses of Shadow of the Colossus are to be found on Nomad Colossus’ YouTube channel. Nomad’s content goes beyond mere gameplay, and deep into the code and design infrastructure of the original game. This channel’s ambient content dug up the hidden details, abandoned levels, ditched colossi, etc. that the developers clearly never intended to reveal. Nomad’s channel represents perhaps the most “fanfiction” like presence for Shadow on the internet. Here’s a good place to start (for lore).
Dan Olsen’s Folding Ideas – “The Morality of Shadow of the Colossus”
Dan Olsen’s video on Shadow has been perhaps the most influential video on my thinking about ethics within video games. Olsen takes us through a discussion of the implied narratives and moral themes permeating Shadow in a way that reaches beyond mere conversations about whether the game was good or not. Rather, Olsen moves the discussion deep into moral philosophy and ethics in a way that actually makes the game seem like a fresh object: something you’d want to begin playing again now that you have this new way to think about it. Here’s his video.
I’m not a huge proponent of mega-conglomerate threads for theories. But, in the absence of any consolidated discussion (namely, on Reddit), IGN has sourced and aggregated what I consider to be the most comprehensive theory-thread on Shadow. The editors and writers go through and entertain theories from the most obscure and ridiculous all the way to the most evidenced and sincere. This thread is most helpful as a kind of “Ctrl+F” document, meaning there’s a lot of spinning your wheels while reading “no this theory is ridiculous but you just spent three paragraphs reading about it.” If you’re putting down your controller at the end of Shadow, however, and are dying for some nuanced commentary on the game’s story, then here’s your Rosetta Stone.
GlitterBerri’s Game Translations
For those loving lore, look no further than GlitterBerri’s resource on deleted scenes, developer interviews, script analyses, and more. This site is a great source for footnotes, so to speak, or paratextual documents that help give the player an understanding of what the developers were trying to do with Shadow.
Scmuplations’ archive of Ueda interviews
This website is home to some crucial and insightful interviews (well translated) with Fumito Ueda, the creator of Shadow, as well as The Last Guardian and Ico. One of the most profound moments in these interviews is when Ueda claims that we (people, adults) are expected to “graduate” from video games in a way that no one expects us to “graduate” from other cultural art formations: literature, film, music, etc. He stipulates that this adolescent attitude is worrisome, and that we should take video games with more seriousness.
Dating all the way back to 2008 (ten years ago!), entire websites have been designed and dedicated to enshrine Shadow of the Colossus. “The Forbidden Land” is a resource that frames how (I think) video games should be discussed, described, and kept alive. Amongst other things, the descriptions and analysis of “Light” and “Dark” forces in Shadow are worth spending some time thinking about.
Jacksepticeye’s nostalgic Let’s Play
I don’t ever watch ‘Let’s Plays’ or gaming channels, really. But watching Jacksepticeye play through Shadow is one of those genuine experiences where you can tell that there’s no faking involved: the enthusiasm and nostalgia bleeds true Jacksepticeye’s playthrough. If you played the game and didn’t love it – for whatever reason – or simply weren’t in love with the game before its recent release, I challenge you to walk away on the other side of Jacksepticeye’s playthrough without sharing his excitement.
At Epilogue, we find it valuable to talk about video games in a substantial and long-lasting way. It would be impossible to account for the wealth of internet resources we have to foster and support the community around Shadow of the Colossus. We’re lucky enough to have a panoply of resources that haven’t disappeared in the thirteen years since this game’s initial release. And we’re lucky enough to have this game coming out, entirely repackaged, for the Playstation 4. Shadow’s 2018 remake is one of those rare times when an entirely new generation has the chance to experience, appreciate, and relive the beckoning horizon that video games once promised.
If we neglected to mention your favorite online resource for Shadow of the Colossus, please let us know in the comments. Our list could go on forever. In the meantime, listen to our new episode of the Ludonarrative Podcast which further unravels the hauntingly beautiful storytelling elements throughout Shadow of the Colossus.
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