In a fascinating admission to PSM3 magazine, the developer behind The Last Guardian has stated that the game originally had a female lead character – until a bizarre complication lead to a change of heart.
The Trico is a very powerful creature,” Team Ico boss Fumito Ueda stated, as reported by CVG. If we’d had a beefed-up, powerful hero, it would have thrown off the balance a little bit, so the design naturally drove me to create an adolescent female character who was light on her feet.
But in the end I decided a boy would have a little more grip to climb the Trico. Another problem is that girls tend to wear skirts, and The Last Guardian features a lot of climbing.”
The Last Guardian is due out on PS3 next year.