After the Fade

In gen Atlas, Fumito Ueda's Colossal Presence Becomes a Machine

Games ; gen Atlas ; Fumito Ueda ; genDESIGN
1574 words
In gen Atlas, Fumito Ueda's Colossal Presence Becomes a Machine

What stayed with me after watching the gen Atlas trailer was not simply the surprise of seeing Fumito Ueda make science fiction. It was an older feeling. A small body stands beside something enormous. The world is wide, explanations are sparse, sand lies underfoot, and the distant outline of a machine seems to wait in silence.

But the colossal presence here is no longer a beast. It is not a creature like Trico in The Last Guardian, something that looks back, hesitates, has moods, and refuses full control. It appears instead as a machine that separates, connects, and moves into another body. What makes gen Atlas interesting is that Ueda's recurring question of how one relates to a colossal presence seems to be shifting from empathy with a living creature toward the act of borrowing a machine body.

This is not a review of an unreleased game. It is a reading of what can be seen for now in the public trailer and in the interviews Ueda has given so far.

Small Bodies And Colossal Things

When I think about Fumito Ueda's games, what sits at the center is not worldbuilding explained in words, but difference in bodily scale.

In ICO, the small act of holding a hand becomes the rule of the world. In Shadow of the Colossus, the human body can only reach the colossi by clinging to their surfaces, climbing, and stabbing. In The Last Guardian, the boy rides on Trico, calls to him, waits for him, and is often pulled around by a huge living creature that does not move exactly as the player wants.

None of these games simply amplify the player's power in a straight line. Their tactile feeling comes instead from anxiety around approaching something larger than oneself, from the distance before contact, and from the time spent waiting for a being that will not immediately obey.

That distance remains in the gen Atlas trailer. There is a small humanoid figure, and there are giant robots. There is open sand, ruined-looking architecture, a machine head flying by itself, and movements that look like connection to another body. What matters in the image is not only that the robot appears to be a powerful weapon. It is how the player's body approaches that scale, where it enters from, and how much of that enormity it can make its own.

This feeling of entering, connecting, and borrowing looks like a major shift in Ueda's lineage. The colossi were targets to defeat. Trico was a companion who could never be fully controlled. In gen Atlas, at least from what the trailer shows, the robot appears as something that can detach from one body and move into another. The relationship with the colossal is no longer hunting or care. It becomes connection and transfer.

Is The Robot An Emotionless Colossus?

It would be too crude to say that this is simply a robot version of Trico. What made Trico powerful was that he felt like a living creature one could almost command but never completely control. He was nearby, but he never became merely a tool. That frustration gradually turned into attachment.

A robot is a different kind of presence. Machines bring in words like command, connection, piloting, replacement, and repair. If the player can move a giant robot, then it is both companion and bodily extension. That creates a tension unlike the act of waiting for an animal one cannot fully understand. What does one do with borrowed force? How far does responsibility extend when one uses a machine body?

In an interview with PC Gamer, Ueda describes the starting point of gen Atlas as the desire to get into a giant robot and fight giant robots. The science-fiction world did not come first so much as the robot theme, from which the world expanded. That feels like a very direct beginning. Before elaborate setting, there is a bodily wish: I want to get into that huge thing.

The strength of Ueda's games has been that they do not leave such simple wishes as simple pleasure. One wants to defeat a colossus. But after doing so, the act leaves a sense that something irreversible has happened. One wants to be with a large creature. But the creature will not behave like a pet. In gen Atlas, the question will be whether riding a robot and moving an enormous machine remains pure empowerment or becomes something heavier.

The trailer's sand and ruins cool that empowerment down. The machines do not look like new, shining weapons so much as bodies left behind after a long time. The excitement of entering something colossal and the quietness of walking through an already damaged world sit in the same image.

Shooting As A Means Of Existing, Not A Genre

One surprising element in gen Atlas is shooting. On the surface, Fumito Ueda and firearms seem far apart. But in the PC Gamer interview, Ueda explains that shooting is not the game's main mechanic. It is one tool for overcoming challenges, and a way for the player to feel that their existence matters in the world.

That explanation makes sense if one thinks back to the enemies in ICO. ICO is not a game about defeating every enemy for points. But when those shadow-like enemies appear, the player feels that something must be done. Swinging the stick is less a combat pleasure than proof of being present in that place.

If shooting in gen Atlas works in that way, then the gun does not decide the genre. It is not there to make the game a shooter. It becomes a small means of interfering with the world. If shooting supports the feeling of "I am here" rather than score or conquest, then it is not far outside Ueda's grammar.

What matters more is how that shooting connects to the robot body. Does the small humanoid body shoot? Does the giant machine shoot? Are the targets enemies, devices, or parts of the world? In Ueda's games, the meaning of input often sits close to the meaning of the story. So I want to look at shooting in gen Atlas not as a simple action element, but as a question of which body the player uses, and from what distance they touch the world.

Sand And Time

In the trailer, sand may be even more interesting than the robots. Sand makes futuristic machines feel old at once. It softens the edges of metal, buries structures, records footsteps, and then erases them. Although this is a science-fiction world, it carries less brightness of forward motion than the time after something has ended.

Ueda's spaces have always felt slightly late. The castle in ICO, the forbidden land in Shadow of the Colossus, and the ruins in The Last Guardian do not feel newly built. They feel like places left after someone has gone. The sandy world of gen Atlas belongs near that line. The difference is that what remains is no longer stone ruin or living body, but giant mechanical bodies and wreckage.

Machines are often shown as things that bring the future. But machines buried in sand look more like the future after it has already become the past. Something made by humans, or by something close to humans, is being overcome by time. Within that, the player finds parts that still move, connects to them, and uses them as a body.

That may be where the loneliness of gen Atlas lies. Giant robots are also a childhood dream. But the robots in this game do not seem to be heroic machines launching from a clean hangar. They appear as things left after a long time, as bodies that have lost bodies, as heads that fly alone and search for other bodies. If so, this is not only "a game about riding robots." It may also be a game about how to inherit a lost body.

Ueda Still Begins From A Small Body

gen Atlas looks new for a Fumito Ueda game. Science fiction, robots, shooting, multiplatform release, Epic Games Publishing. The environment has changed, including the fact that a creator so strongly tied to PlayStation memory is now moving outward from day one.

Even so, the center that remains after the trailer does not feel so different. A small body stands beside something enormous. There are places one cannot reach alone. One must borrow a larger force to move forward, but borrowing that force probably has weight.

Ueda's games have never given the player only the pleasure of becoming stronger. They have also given the constraint of touching something larger than oneself, the fear of dependence, the aftertaste of killing, and the time of waiting. If gen Atlas becomes truly interesting, it will be because it does not let the clear dream of giant robots remain simple consumption. It will dig into the feel of borrowing a machine body.

How does one relate to a colossal thing that is not alive? How far can a machine that appears commandable become one's body, and where does it remain other? The gen Atlas trailer does not yet answer those questions. It remains as an entrance to them.

References