In The Last Guardian, you play as a boy trying to find his way home with a majestic creature named Trico. There is never a moment where the game abandons this concept; through thick and thin, for every puzzle, every lever, every otherworldly encounter, every small instance of flight, for every quiet moment inside this ruined castle, you are a boy with a beast trying to get home. Over time, the player themselves learn to love Trico. Their journey is the boy's, and the boy loves Trico. As the hours pass in such an empty world, you'll always have a companion. Trico is easy to love.

However, the journey is arduous, and circumstances lead to the boy and the beast both returning to the village severely injured. Trico, wishing no harm to the villagers, returns the boy in hopes of them nursing him back to health. Trico mourns for the boy, but the villagers misinterpret this mourning as a threat and attack Trico. The broken creature is forced to retreat, and presumed to have died without aid.

After credits we return to our story after it ended, the boy now an adult. After so many years, he recalls his story and pays tribute to his old friend. It is then we cut back to the ruined castle he escaped from. For the last few seconds of the game, we see two pairs of green eyes in the dark. The end.

So...is Trico alive?
I don't know.

I consider The Last Guardian a tragedy. Like all good tragedies, it warns us about the danger of a particular action or attitude. In truth, despite Trico and the boy's difficult journey home, and despite their bond, they could never remain together. Stubbornness and ignorance drove Trico away, and the player receives the ultimate punishment: the lack of closure.

If Trico was shown to have lived, the player would be satisfied and content. If Trico was shown to have died, it absolutely would be sad for the boy/player, but death can be accepted with time. Mourning eventually makes way for closure. The player receives neither of these endings, leaving the status of Trico a mystery. The boy/player may have formed a bond with Trico, but the world refused this bond, and severed this relationship. Trico has been completely removed from the life of the boy/player, so just as the boy, the player becomes a victim and is left only with uncertainty. Trico might have lived, found a mate, and began to reproduce his species free of the influence of the castle's arcane magic. Or he might have died, and those eyes belong to the only survivors in the species remaining. Maybe there were even more of this type of creature that we have yet to discover. We don't know, and now we never will.

By leaning into the nature of the gaming medium, through encouraging the player to engage with love through their interactions with Trico, and subsequently ripping that love away from you, The Last Guardian forces you not just to understand or empathize, but to feel the tragedy first-hand. This is why I find it so easy to dismiss many of the technical imperfections, because the game provides an entirely unparalleled, deeply personal experience.