NICO emerges ahead of Tokyo Game Show
Along with Game Republic's first title.
Two of Sony's biggest forthcoming titles have been unveiled ahead of their first showing at the Tokyo Game Show later this month - including the long-awaited announcement of the next game from the team behind cult classic ICO.
Dubbed "NICO" by the gaming press (and indeed by some within Sony), the secret project being created by the ICO team has been renamed as Wanda to Kyozou ("Wanda and the Colossus"), and although it shares a graphical style with ICO, it does not appear to be a sequel to the landmark title.
The game's eponymous central characters are Wanda, a girl on horseback in clothing reminiscent of North American Indian tribes, and the Colossus, a stone giant covered in glyph-style inscriptions.
Although the game doesn't follow on from ICO, as many had hoped, the graphical style is very similar - with the first shots showing off misty cliffs with circling sea birds and the same remarkable, dream-like quality which is often cited by fans of ICO.
The second game to be unveiled is Genji, a historical epic set in 1159 which develops an alternate history scenario based on the battles of the Genji and Heishi clans in feudal Japan.
The game is particularly interesting because it is the first title to be created by Game Republic, the studio formed by senior Capcom exec Yoshiki Okamoto when he left the company in 2003.
Both titles are scheduled for launch in 2005, and are due to be shown off at the Tokyo Game Show, which opens its doors on September 24th, so further information about them should be available around that time.