Gen Atlas is Fumito Ueda's giant robot game, and it's more personal than it sounds

Fumito Ueda, the creator of Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, has revealed Gen Atlas — formerly known as Project Robot — a game built around giant robots and the childhood memories that made them feel awe-inspiring. In an interview with Polygon, Ueda said he wanted a universal theme, something rooted in the daily exposure to mecha across TV, manga, and posters that defined growing up in Japan.

In Gen Atlas, players control a lone pilot who wakes up on an abandoned planet covered in colossal structures, deserted facilities, and a constantly shifting sea. Broken giant robots are scattered across the surface, and the player will take control of them. The central companion is a detached robot head — part navigator, part transport, part emotional anchor. "At times it could be your navigator, at times it will be your means of transportation," Ueda said. "It could be seen as a more functional tool, but it's also meant to be your partner." That bond between two characters is the emotional core of the game, continuing the tradition Ueda established with a young girl, a horse, and a chimeric creature in his earlier work.

Gen Atlas draws obvious comparisons to Shadow of the Colossus — a solitary figure in a vast, quiet world, climbing enormous living structures. Ueda said revisiting his older games shaped what he wants to avoid this time around, specifically calling out "tedious" gameplay. "I'm very mindful of creating or designing opportunities that will allow the player to feel a better type of gameplay experience and not having to think, 'Oh my gosh, this is going to be a tedious task that I have to do,'" he said. He was also careful to note that no single mecha franchise — not Getter Robo, not Neon Genesis Evangelion — directly inspired the game. It was the cumulative, ambient presence of giant robots as a sci-fi trope that stuck with him.

Gen Atlas is being developed at Gen Design in partnership with Epic Games. Ueda is betting that the power fantasy of piloting a massive machine is universal enough to land with players who never grew up watching mecha anime — and that the quiet emotional connection his games are known for will carry through even when your companion is a giant metal head.