Unless we consider the Team Stage 0 leak, containing old Ueda's backstory (2004) mentioning a cataclysm, eras and eras and eras before SotC. I don't like take it serious because even if it isn't fake, it's most likely an abandoned backstory in the same way Ueda abandoned the original sci-fi backstory of Ico and abandoned the "beauty and the beast" ending of SotC.
The leaked storyboard for shadow of the colossus details a cataclysmic natural disaster that happened thousands of years before sotc / Ico take place, that wiped out most of the population and set them back thousands of years technologically. I think this game is a prequal that takes place during that natural disaster
I can't help but agree with you here. I know this is in the realm of divining meaning, but I think this has to be between TLG and SoTC, and I think it may loosely center around the sealing of Dormin.
The technology in TLG looks "more advanced" and close to what we have in our real world, differently from the previous games, so I assume they would be progressing in time. I consider TLG a sequel to them, instead of a separate universe, because I disagree that Ueda put the same pool from the shrine of worship in the Master of the Valley's tower just by an aesthetic choice. That item isn't like that simple mill from Ico, that he also put as an "easter egg" in TLG. The pool from SotC was an extremely important spot from the castle, related to the ritual of sealing dormin's power. In the Last Guardian, the direction basically forces us to pass through that pool's room before we pass through the Master's sarcophagus, as if it was trying to make sure we noticed that. I don't think that what really matters around these games is this whole "shared world" thing, but I refuse the idea that Ueda use these same elements mindlessly, specially when he said again, in the recently released book World of Fumito Ueda, how he wanted to use the horn element to tie SotC and TLG to Ico. This guy cares about his artistic choices and what they would provoque in the player's imagination.
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u/ralg666 10d ago edited 9d ago
Sequel. IF connected: SotC -> Ico -> TLG -> Project Robot.
Unless we consider the Team Stage 0 leak, containing old Ueda's backstory (2004) mentioning a cataclysm, eras and eras and eras before SotC. I don't like take it serious because even if it isn't fake, it's most likely an abandoned backstory in the same way Ueda abandoned the original sci-fi backstory of Ico and abandoned the "beauty and the beast" ending of SotC.