Sony's E3 presser comes and goes with no sign of The Last Guardian

Counting this year's E3, it would make for four in a year since the game was announced that we haven't heard much of anything about Team Ico's hotly anticipated The Last Guardian.

Formally announced in 2009, it was suspected that the game might one day appear on the PlayStation 3. But with Sony formally unveiling the PlayStation 4, and still no sign of the game, it seemed logical enough that the game had been pushed to the next-gen system. And with the company set to show off a number of other titles for the new console, E3 seemed like the perfect place to finally show the game in all its glory.

Additionally, the game had popped up over at the Entertainment Software Association's E3 site, E3Insider, listed alongside other games that Sony was said to present, but alas, it just wasn't in the cards this year. Again.

The game's been in development now for years under Shadow of the Colossus developer Team ICO, with only scant details released about it in the same amount of time. Last we heard, Sony was waiting "for the right time" to finally re-introduce the game to the world, and we thought E3 could finally be that time. Sony said the game's listing on the site was "purely speculative."

We've since heard from two of Sony's head honchos about The Last Guardian. President of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, said the game is still in development, and that Sony would only talk about the game when they're ready to do so. President and CEO of Sony of America, Jack Tretton, told Game Trailers that the game is officially on hiatus.

While that certainly may sound like "canned" to some, this isn't so. As Tretton clarified, "I think the cool thing about our worldwide development studios is we have so many projects out there from so many great teams. Projects never ultimately go away..."