{"id":1982473,"date":"2026-06-10T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1982473"},"modified":"2026-06-10T11:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:00:15","slug":"its-not-just-one-definition-or-meaning-legendary-designer-fumito-ueda-says-gen-atlas-the-title-of-his-new-game-means-more-than-you-might-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1982473","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;It&#8217;s not just one definition or meaning&#8221; &#8211; legendary designer Fumito Ueda says Gen Atlas, the title of his new game, means more than you might think"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not just one definition or meaning&#8221; &#8211; legendary designer Fumito Ueda says Gen Atlas, the title of his new game, means more than you might think<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">No longer at a colossus.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/fumito-ueda-gen-atlas.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Legendary Japanese developer Fumito Ueda - a man with thick black-rimmed glasses, loose black top, and medium-length side-parted hair - is overlaid over a screenshot from his new game Gen Atlas. The screenshot is yellow hued as if in a desert dust storm and shows a small figure standing atop a huge robot head.\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"fumito-ueda-gen-atlas.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Eurogamer \/ genDesign<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/robert-purchese\">Robert Purchese<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Associate Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-06-10T11:00:15+00:00\">June 10, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fumito-ueda-gen-atlas-game-name-explanation?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          5 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"985b30f8-60f3-4327-b53f-726b426c987b\" data-name=\"Gen Atlas\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Gen Atlas\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Gen Atlas\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Gen Atlas\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Gen Atlas\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Gen Atlas\" title=\"Follow Gen Atlas\"><br \/>\n  Follow Gen Atlas<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Fumito Ueda &#8211; the legendary designer of ICO, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/shadow-of-the-colossus\">Shadow of the Colossus<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/last-guardian\">The Last Guardian<\/a> &#8211; has explained what the title of his new game, Gen Atlas, means. And it seems like it carries more meaning than you might think.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So let&#8217;s start with the &#8216;Gen&#8217; part,&#8221; Ueda told our editor Chris Tapsell, via translator, during an interview at Summer Game Fest. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just one definition or meaning: it has a couple of different word associations. So &#8216;genesis&#8217; is one, &#8216;gene&#8217; is another, and then &#8216;generate&#8217; &#8211; the act of generating &#8211; is another.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And then &#8216;Atlas&#8217;,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know about you, but a lot of people think [of] &#8216;the world atlas, the world map&#8217;. But it also is the first cervical vertebra here that connects the head to the neck, and as you can see in the robot head design, it evokes that as well. As a whole, I felt like they would compliment each other but also become a word or a title that would capture the entirety of the world that we&#8217;re building.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"gen Atlas - Official Gameplay Trailer | IGN Summer of Gaming 2026\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QVWXJpn6Bas?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/QVWXJpn6Bas\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">gen Atlas &#8211; Official Gameplay Trailer | IGN Summer of Gaming 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Fumito Ueda&#8217;s new game Gen Atlas.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QVWXJpn6Bas\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fumito-ueda-shadow-of-the-colossus-ico-gen-atlas-or-xbox-playstation-pc\">Gen Atlas was revealed during the Summer Game Fest showcase<\/a> last Friday, in a trailer that showed a humanoid-sized robot &#8216;waking up&#8217; in a deserted and silent planet, and then rebuilding and partnering with a colossal, tower-sized robot. Part of that rebuilding process involved flying a head, with its own propulsion engines, onto the skeleton of a huge mechanical husk buried in the sand. From the head we see a dangling mechanical spinal cord, which is presumably the &#8220;robot head design&#8221; Udea refers to above.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Partnering with another large entity feels similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/the-last-guardian-review\">Ueda&#8217;s previous game The Last Guardian<\/a> &#8211; released 10 years ago this year &#8211; in which we buddied-up with a strange Catweagle creature to climb up and out of a towering arena. But the game of Ueda&#8217;s Gen Atlas is most similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/r-sotc-ps2\">his melancholic colossi-hunting open-world adventure Shadow of the Colossus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Ueda said. &#8220;Shadow of the Colossus is the most similar. Not at the level of detail but in terms of the balance between how much action there is and even the scale of things in the world, the adventuring, the traversing you&#8217;re going to do, the seamless loading of the environment and so forth. Overall, yes, out of the previous three games, that would be the best in terms of having similarities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gen Atlas is formally billed as a single-player, open-world action adventure. It&#8217;s in development at Ueda&#8217;s studio genDesign but it&#8217;s notably not published by Sony this time but by Epic Games, hence the Epic Games Store exclusivity on PC. Gen Atlas is also coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S\/X.<\/p>\n<p>When Gen Atlas will release is another question altogether; no release date or window were given during the presentation, suggesting it could be far off. Let&#8217;s hope we don&#8217;t have another extended The Last Guardian wait on our hands.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Fumito Ueda &#8211; the legendary designer of ICO, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/shadow-of-the-colossus\">Shadow of the Colossus<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/last-guardian\">The Last Guardian<\/a> &#8211; has explained what the title of his new game, Gen Atlas, means. And it seems like it carries more meaning than you might think.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So let&#8217;s start with the &#8216;Gen&#8217; part,&#8221; Ueda told our editor Chris Tapsell, via translator, during an interview at Summer Game Fest. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just one definition or meaning: it has a couple of different word associations. So &#8216;genesis&#8217; is one, &#8216;gene&#8217; is another, and then &#8216;generate&#8217; &#8211; the act of generating &#8211; is another.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And then &#8216;Atlas&#8217;,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know about you, but a lot of people think [of] &#8216;the world atlas, the world map&#8217;. But it also is the first cervical vertebra here that connects the head to the neck, and as you can see in the robot head design, it evokes that as well. As a whole, I felt like they would compliment each other but also become a word or a title that would capture the entirety of the world that we&#8217;re building.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"gen Atlas - Official Gameplay Trailer | IGN Summer of Gaming 2026\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QVWXJpn6Bas?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/QVWXJpn6Bas\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">gen Atlas &#8211; Official Gameplay Trailer | IGN Summer of Gaming 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Fumito Ueda&#8217;s new game Gen Atlas.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QVWXJpn6Bas\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fumito-ueda-shadow-of-the-colossus-ico-gen-atlas-or-xbox-playstation-pc\">Gen Atlas was revealed during the Summer Game Fest showcase<\/a> last Friday, in a trailer that showed a humanoid-sized robot &#8216;waking up&#8217; in a deserted and silent planet, and then rebuilding and partnering with a colossal, tower-sized robot. Part of that rebuilding process involved flying a head, with its own propulsion engines, onto the skeleton of a huge mechanical husk buried in the sand. From the head we see a dangling mechanical spinal cord, which is presumably the &#8220;robot head design&#8221; Udea refers to above.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Partnering with another large entity feels similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/the-last-guardian-review\">Ueda&#8217;s previous game The Last Guardian<\/a> &#8211; released 10 years ago this year &#8211; in which we buddied-up with a strange Catweagle creature to climb up and out of a towering arena. But the game of Ueda&#8217;s Gen Atlas is most similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/r-sotc-ps2\">his melancholic colossi-hunting open-world adventure Shadow of the Colossus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Ueda said. &#8220;Shadow of the Colossus is the most similar. Not at the level of detail but in terms of the balance between how much action there is and even the scale of things in the world, the adventuring, the traversing you&#8217;re going to do, the seamless loading of the environment and so forth. Overall, yes, out of the previous three games, that would be the best in terms of having similarities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gen Atlas is formally billed as a single-player, open-world action adventure. It&#8217;s in development at Ueda&#8217;s studio genDesign but it&#8217;s notably not published by Sony this time but by Epic Games, hence the Epic Games Store exclusivity on PC. Gen Atlas is also coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S\/X.<\/p>\n<p>When Gen Atlas will release is another question altogether; no release date or window were given during the presentation, suggesting it could be far off. Let&#8217;s hope we don&#8217;t have another extended The Last Guardian wait on our hands.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News &#8220;It&#8217;s not just one definition or meaning&#8221; &#8211; legendary designer Fumito Ueda says Gen Atlas, the title of his new game, means more than you might think No longer at a colossus. Image credit: Eurogamer \/ genDesign News by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on June 10, 2026 5 comments Follow Gen Atlas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1982473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1982473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1982473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1982473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1982473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}