Team Ico Collection Officially Announced

Rumours have been circulating for a while now that a HD collection containing two of gamings most artistically beautiful releases was on the cards, although today at the Tokyo Game Show that became a solid reality.

Announced earlier this morning by none other than Fumito Ueda himself (who if you didn’t know is the Director behind the legendary Team Ico) was that a collection featuring both Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus would be heading to PlayStation 3’s in time for spring next year.


Like with the recent God Of War Collection, the one from Team Ico will be rendered in HD, with a few graphical upgrades in order to keep things looking good with the boost in resolution – including being framed correctly in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. Texture work is being tweaked and redone where necessary (seeing low res art stretched upon higher res geometry doesn’t make for impressive viewing), and both games will now be locked at a constant 30fps. Expect full v-sync to be easily maintained, with no slowdown or tearing – or so we hope.

Whilst some of you might be disappointed that the magical 60fps number wasn’t thrown around, in the sake of accurately keeping the original ‘feel’ of both games in tact, the decision to use a lower framerate I think, was the right one.

On a plus note, Team Ico also announced that the collection would also feature native 3D support, which will be rather interesting to see. If it is anywhere near as well implemented as in the likes of Disney’s Up or Toy Story 3, then it should deliver us an even more immersive experience than before. Hopefully, with little out-of-the-screen pop, and with more depth perception.

Interestingly, the collection will also mark the first time US gamers will see the complete version of Ico, which now makes it’s worldwide debut with its longer ‘intended’ European ending.

The Team Ico Collection (tentatively titled) will make its debut sometime next spring (rumoured April 2011 for North America, and June 2011 for Europe). It will come packaged on a single Blu-Ray disc, and is expected to retail below the usual full price RRP of new release titles. I imagine £29.99 like with the GOW Collection sounds about right. But of course, we shall see.