-Wander ends up with horns.

-ICO has horns but they end up broken.

-The Last Guardian has horns and they ARE broken.

The story begins with Shadow of the Colossus. The very last line of SOTC is "Should you be alive... If it's even possible to continue to exist in these sealed lands... one day, perhaps you will make atonement for what you've done" by the priest who sealed the land. These words foreshadow that he can set right what he did wrong and that his soul continues on it's journey even after the events of SOTC. The three are obviously tied throughout time in a way that correlates to asian philosophy on reincarnation. The important element to keep track of is the horns and knowing whom they truly belong to.

Loosely, though enrelated, the 'women' tie SOTC and ICO together. The 'boys' tie ICO and The Last Guardian together. And The Last Guardian beast ties together with the 'colossus' closing the loop. Each previous life symbolically plays a significant role into the next one.

A few theories could be that after the events of SOTC, Wanders soul was exiled. Boys were born with horns and cast away repeatedly until hundreds of years later something different happened. One of these boys escaped and he did a good deed. He had compassion and helped a woman he came across in the castle. This was no ordinary woman though. This was the daughter of the dark queen who lives in a castle full of shadow people like we see in SOTC. Could she be Dormins queen or mistress? What is her connection to the shadows? It's hard to determine but perhaps Wanders soul had achieved something through helping Yorda and killing the queen. She was obviously tied to the shadows and darkness. He also ends up on the shores as if he has been cleansed. Did Wander eventually become one of the guardians he originally slayed? Wanders soul may have eventually earned the right to become guardian and a colossus himself with time. Afterall we know Dormin was split into 16 pieces but we know very little about the creation and existence of the colossus themselves. Either way, this new colossal beast in The Last Guardian isn't blindly being killed like in SOTC, instead it is embraced by love from a boy. The love needed to keep Dormin at bay and seperated. It's original intent and his purpose as a soul. If this beast was met by a warrior surely he would be slayed.

I'm not understanding your reasoning. This is one of those situations where you say something is "just like" this other thing because you can demonstrate that one could imagine the elements fitting into that structure. Just because one could imagine that the characters are reincarnations of eachother (I think that's what you're trying to get at), doesn't even suggest in any meaningful way that anyone should think that was the intention of the creator. It's true they may reuse a lot of artistic/narrative ideas between games but so what that's to be expected and in actuality they're much more distinct than western narratives are from eachother so far as I can tell.

This really seems like grasping at straws. It kind of sounds like you are searching for connections and forcing yourself to see patterns that don't really exist. Think the word for it is apophenia.

What?

I'm willing to believe they are connected (and I even suspect that they are), but I'm not buying your argument for why.

I'm more worried about the Last Guardian coming out at all, much less how they're tied together. I'm sure they might allude to some kind of narrative structure, or possibly they'll all just be unrelated games.

I'm willing to believe they are connected (and I even suspect that they are), but I'm not buying your argument for why.

Apparently I'm mistaken.

I guess them taking place in the same world with the same architecture, with characters with horns (and sequentially one character getting horns, another breaking horns, and then the beast having broken horns), colossal creatures, constant white doves, the sacred sword in Shadow and ICO, and the last lines spoken in SOTC aren't proof enough that this is a single journey.

SOTC: Going from a human, to a beast, to a child with horns in a fountain isn't a symbol of rebirth. Nah....

ICO: I guess ICO's broken horns don't highly resemble the broken horns from the Last Guardian. Nope nope nope.

@The_Laughing_Man: That was always my understanding, but I don't believe that has ever been explicitly stated.

@The_Laughing_Man: That was always my understanding, but I don't believe that has ever been explicitly stated.

I like to thing of them as separate stories. But if everything is related... Shadow Queen is Dormin. I'm calling it.

Definitely not separate stories. How can everyone be ignoring the horns? Wander obviously got them. ICO obviously has them and got them broken. The Last Guardians are definitely broken!

Okay, Ueda just likes horns. Horns that grow, get carried onto the next game and break, and carry on broken to the next game. Though, they have no relation. No coincidence. No connecting stories. The man just loves horns and shadow creatures for all of his games.

Please use common sense people. The only reason people believe they aren't connected is from gossip in the early 2000's and Ueda being very secretive about the story. He always is. He's not going to spoil his trilogy for you people by letting everyone know his intentions.

The soldiers/knights show up in The Last Guardian, very similar soldiers from ICO. The architecture is obviously the same. The horns. The doves. The shadows. Dormin.Look at screenshots released for the last guardian- he even has a glowing weak point on his back like the typical colossus.

There are clues everywhere! But forget the clues, they don't matter right? What the heck? Wow, just forget it. I could go on and on with similarities and people will just spout what they want to believe rather than using COMMON SENSE. The clues are OBVIOUS!

Chronological order:

1. The wanderer releases the ancient demon Dormin upon the world and is cursed with horns.

2. A descendant of the wanderer manages to escape the forbidden land trough a epic high definition motion controlled tamagotchi adventure

- finds a human settlement, gets married, has children, the cursed bloodline remains intact for many generations to come.

3. Over many generations the cursed bloodline has spread to many different families and with no sure factor a superstition arises that one cursed child arises once every generation and has to be sacrificed. Tough all these cursed children all share one ancestor (the wanderer) this has long been forgotten trough the ages as family's divided and spread across the lands

This only works if the curse follows the following rule:

the curse is passed on to ones children tough not all will suffer the visible effects making it possible for the bloodline to survive and flourish over the centuries.

Likely: Dormin himself created the superstition and sacrificing ritual to gather\regenerate his lost power that he used to fulfill Wanderer's request.

@TheLastColossus

- All three were made by the same developer.

Hey guys I think call of duty, battlefield and medal of honor all follow the same story because they have guns.

Oh wait, I get it now! Trolling is an artform, that's why these guys put so much effort into it.

@Questionable said:

Chronological order:

1. The wanderer releases the ancient demon Dormin upon the world and is cursed with horns.

2. A descendant of the wanderer manages to escape the forbidden land trough a epic high definition motion controlled tamagotchi adventure

- finds a human settlement, gets married, has children, the cursed bloodline remains intact for many generations to come.

3. Over many generations the cursed bloodline has spread to many different families and with no sure factor a superstition arises that one cursed child arises once every generation and has to be sacrificed. Tough all these cursed children all share one ancestor (the wanderer) this has long been forgotten trough the ages as family's divided and spread across the lands

This only works if the curse follows the following rule:

the curse is passed on to ones children tough not all will suffer the visible effects making it possible for the bloodline to survive and flourish over the centuries.

Likely: Dormin himself created the superstition and sacrificing ritual to gather\regenerate his lost power that he used to fulfill Wanderer's request.

I prefer this version better

@TheLastColossus said:

Okay, Ueda just likes horns. Horns that grow, get carried onto the next game and break, and carry on broken to the next game. Though, they have no relation. No coincidence. No connecting stories. The man just loves horns and shadow creatures for all of his games.

Are you really saying this is not a possibility?

@HaltIamReptar said:

@TheLastColossus said:

Okay, Ueda just likes horns. Horns that grow, get carried onto the next game and break, and carry on broken to the next game. Though, they have no relation. No coincidence. No connecting stories. The man just loves horns and shadow creatures for all of his games.

Are you really saying this is not a possibility?

No he's just messing with you.

Its already been said so many times that the games all tie in to the same world that i doubt anyone who has played the previous games can be un-aware.

Each game feels complete its own and there are just enough hints to flesh out the complete saga if one wishes to search for it.

There is definitely something to the horns.

Ico was clearly a descendant of Wander as shown in the end of Shadow of the Colossus and I have a feeling that Toriko (the creature in The Last Guardian) will in some way be related to the origins of Dormin. I don't know what the hell you were talking about.

I have always felt that Shadow of the Colossus is the beginning, Ico is the middle, and that The Last Guardian would be the end. They are all "spiritual successors", though. Whether the actual stories fully link up or not, that's not to be known.

Part of the beauty of these three games (well, Last Guardian is still to be determined, but let's be honest - that game isn't going to suck) is that the story is mostly player-authored. There is a very minimalist storytelling style used in the games, which allows you as the player to link the games however you want. If someone says that Ico takes place before Shadow of the Colossus and they can make a valid argument, then you can't say they are wrong. You can only say "that's not how I see it". It's why these games are incredibly timeless: the story is only known to the person who creates the story, while the interpretation is left up to the person interacting with the games at that time.

If anything, Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are two games that can make me say "I can see video games as an art form".

I hope that griffin/dog/bird thing will become the evil deity from SOTC.

There's an Ico book that basically invalidates the theory that the two games are related. It was written post both games, I believe, and I don't know if Team ICO had any creative direction or influence on the author, but unless baby Wander and Yorda go on to spawn an entire civilization, the connection is tenuous at best.

arms and legs. Everyone in these games has arms and legs. They all must be the same person.