Rumor: Last Guardian Trademark “Abandoned”

The Last Guardian has probably had the most tumultuous development cycle of any game this generation. From the executive producer of the game Yoshifusa Hayama leaving Sony, to creator Fumito Ueda also deciding to leave Team Ico. However, Ueda did say he promised to stay and finish the game, but at this rate that may take another ten years.

Sony Santa Monica was even brought in to help fix some major issues with the game and put everything together so the game would be able to ship on the PS3.

Now comes word that Sony may have abandoned the Last Guardian trademark altogether. According to the website Trademarkia: “On Monday, August 6, 2012, status on the The Last Guardian trademark changed to Abandoned – No Statement of Use Filed.” It was even updated later today with the same thing “ABANDONED – NO STATEMENT OF USE FILED.”

Sony has not made a statement about the Last Guardian trademark to this point. They will have to make a statement about the trademark issue sometime in the near future just to clear things up. The only thing Sony has ever said about the Last Guardian the past two years was that it is not dead and it remains in development. Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida himself has stated The Last Guardian is “still in development.”

Now as to what this means for the Last Guardian is still unknown, at least until Sony comments on the issue. However, I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the game has officially been cancelled. In actuality what may be happening is that Sony might be changing the name of the game, sort of a re-branding if you will.

For all we know the game could have changed drastically in the past few years and it is nowhere near the same game that Sony showed off all those years back at E3. So a name change might be in store for the game and that might be why they let the trademark expire. At least that is what I hope has happened as opposed to being cancelled outright.

Let me ask all of you, do you still believe The Last Guardian will turn out great or have you given up hope that the game will be able to reach its’ potential?