With Bluepoint’s beautiful PlayStation 4 remake of Shadow of the Colossus reintroducing the world to Fumito Ueda’s masterpiece, this might be the first time many players will get to experience the game. The final product includes sixteen different colossi of all shapes and sizes to conquer, but that wasn’t always the case during the pre-production stages. Team Ico originally planned for a massive 48 colossi to be featured in the game, but due to technological limitations and the huge amount of work that would go into that, the developer had to make drastic cuts, dwindling it down to 24 – half the original number of beasts. Luckily, the eight unused colossi’s concept art did make their way to the internet, giving us a taste of what could’ve been. For those of you who are new to the game, here’s a look at the colossi that unfortunately didn’t make the final cut.



The first cut colossus, nicknamed Pholux, was a small gargoyle-type creature that perched on a high platform. It’s unclear exactly where the weak spot would be, but like the fifth colossus, Avion, it would probably require getting the creatures attention using your bow. According to the artbook, you’d then have to engage in some stealth using the high grass around the environment to throw it off, then jump on its back at the right moment. It’s a very clever battle that would require a different approach in gameplay, but I can see why Pholux was cut. It’s strange, almost medieval design wouldn’t fit in with the other colossi.

Those who remember the early tech demo trailers for the game might be familiar with the next colossus, Kyos; a huge griffin-like creature that moved very fast and required the help of your horse, Agro, to mount it. The reason why it ultimately got scrapped was apparently due to the difficulty of staying on the colossus, as it shook more violently than any other beast before it, and was quite easy to fall off. There’s no denying that the fight would’ve been breathtaking as it was among the few quadruped colossi that moved quickly.

The next colossus has no official name, but the developers simply referred to it as “Monkey”. As the name suggests, it resembled a primate and acted like one too. You’d engage the colossus in a large, open cave as it hung from the ceiling, dropping stalactites and itself on top of you. There were a couple of ways to actually defeat the creature: either bring it down by shooting its body with arrows, or shoot the stalactites around it to make it fall to the ground where you could attack its weak points. The reasons for it being cut are unknown, though it would probably have to do with the lack of resources at the time to animate such an complex animal in motion.



One of the coolest cut colossi from the game is Adar Flam, a huge bird-like flaming colossus that resembled a phoenix. The battle would take place near a lake, requiring Wander to bring down the creature by hitting trigger points on its body that would cause it to fall into the lake and extinguish the flames, making it possible to climb it and hit the weak spot before it reignites again. Unlike previous cut colossi, the developers made it known exactly why this formidable tyrant had to be cut. It was an excruciatingly time-consuming and difficult fight that would need a very large open area because of its widespread fire attacks. Nonetheless, this would’ve been an incredible and challenging battle that I personally would’ve loved to see.

Next to Avion and Phalanx, Roc (or “Avus”) would’ve been one of the few airborne colossi featured in the final game, resembling a scaly bat. The battle plays out very similarly to Phalanx; you’d ride Agro around a desert area and bring it down with your bow. The colossus didn’t make the final cut because the developer had problems with collision detection and it was too similar to the fights against Avion and Phalanx. However, this is easily one of the best designed cut colossi, and would’ve also been a terrific battle in scope.

There’s no denying that the smaller colossi in the final game are among the most annoying to deal with, which is why our next beast, Sirius, landed on the chopping block. Like Cenobia and Celosia, Sirius was a small, boar-like creature that relentlessly chased you down. The difference here was that you could use Agro to escape it. It eventually got cut due to the fact that it was another frustratingly aggressive small colossus to fight, and didn’t have any element of puzzle-solving like its counterparts that did make the cut. You simply ran around dodging it while waiting for the opportunity to jump on its already exposed back. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, if you ask me.



The next colossus is pretty ingeniously designed, though just a tad bit weird, even for Shadow of the Colossus. Nicknamed Aberth, this gigantic spider colossus starts off submerged in a lake. Wander would have to draw the creature out of the water onto land, where it would reveal its enormous height. Trigger points were planted on all six of its legs, requiring players to hit all of them before bringing the creature down. Aberth’s weak point would be located on its head, so it was just a case of mounting the tall beast and enjoying what I would imagine to be a great view. The developer decided to cut it because it involved creating a whole new sword-swinging animation for Wander, who would ride around its legs and target the trigger points in a cool diagonal slicing maneuver.

Finally, there’s the massive worm colossus, Dionin. Easily the most challenging cut colossus, Dionin, much like Dirge, was fought in a large desert area where it hid its body beneath the sand. Players would have to move quickly around the environment as the creature was insanely fast to attack, leaving little room for dodging or evasion. Unfortunately, there was no area on the map big enough to accommodate this battle, leading it to be cut from the final game. Not much else is known about this colossus, but it does have one of most eerie, almost frightening designs of any beast in the game.

So does this mean that we will never get to battle these amazing cut colossi? Since the Shadow of the Colossus remake improves everything that would’ve been a limitation back then on the PlayStation 2, it is very possible to implement them into the game now. However, I don’t see how they might fit into the world and story unless Team Ico returns and personally handles the development, so it seems like they will have to remain a mystery forever.