Chahi and Ueda Trade Notes on Building Worlds at The Tenth Mosaic
The session documents two designers agreeing on a working premise rarely stated out loud: a game world can exist for its own sake rather than as a frame for rules and scores, which is what Ueda says Another World taught him.
Reporting from 1 source: 4Gamer.net.
Eric Chahi, known for Another World, and Fumito Ueda, known for ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, spoke together in Tokyo on September 23, 2026 at The Tenth Mosaic, held at the Institut francais du Japon. Ueda said ICO's hand-holding grew out of thinking about Another World's alien relationship. Both men described influence as indirect: what they absorb over a life seeps into the work rather than being quoted.
The event ran two days at the Institut francais du Japon in Tokyo, on September 22 and 23, 2026. The second day put Chahi and Ueda on one stage, and the conversation started on influence rather than craft.
Ueda first played Another World on the Super Famicom at a friend's house while he was a university student. What stayed with him was not a mechanic. It was the sense that a world sat inside the screen, without the point counts and rules that other games of the period let show through, which led him to the formulation that you can build a world for the world's sake, not for the game's sake. Chahi traced a return influence the other way, saying the shadow enemies in Ueda's work reminded him of Heart of Darkness.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.