Spider (蜘蛛 Kumo) is a colossus that was cut from the final release of Shadow of the Colossus. Its name was given by the developers as it looks like a daddy longleg.
Fumito Ueda spoke about the Spider and his reasons for its removal in two interviews: "Spider was meant to be defeated by slashing it with your sword while riding Agro, but if you're putting in special motions just to take down a colossus, then it's not really elegant. However, the idea of this strategy was used for the turtle (the ninth colossus). I tend to put a lot of emphasis on whether the game design makes sense, whether it's elegant."[1]
"The concept was great in theory, but difficult to create in practice. We were unable to make it happen during the programming phase."[2]
Appearance
Spider was a six-legged colossus that was 38 meters high. It had weakpoints on the bottom of each of its legs, and bright talons on its underside. Its head was hexagonal-shaped, with a design similar to a crown. Its face was somewhat simplistic, seemingly only having the stone eyes and four thin slabs for a mouth.
Textures
Below is a list of textures found in the colossus' texture segment from the PS3 Data Sheets. Textures that are unknown (not available in any public builds) will not have images and their names will not be bolded.
| Texture | Creator | Note |
|---|---|---|
 sz_fur_a_ita |
Shunpei Suzuki | Billboard used to fake 3D fur when viewed from the sides. |
 sz_fur_a_sita |
Shunpei Suzuki | The bottom layer of the fur on the top half of the colossus' legs. |
 sz_eye_b3 |
Shunpei Suzuki | Border of the stone eyes. |
| sz_eye_a3 | Shunpei Suzuki | Center of the stone eyes. |
 sz_toumei |
Shunpei Suzuki | Transparent texture that is usually placed on dummy vertices for bones that aren't used on the model, such as if the colossus uses separate models or have unused bones. |
 sz_fur_a1 |
Shunpei Suzuki | Third layer of the leg fur, almost completely opaque. |
 sz_fur_a2 |
Shunpei Suzuki | Second layer of the leg fur, midway from opaque and transparent. |
 sz_fur_a3 |
Shunpei Suzuki | Top layer of the leg fur, very transparent. |
| sz_hn_moyou_a2_mip | Shunpei Suzuki & Hitoshi Niwa | Pattern used on the two round parts of the legs near the feet, as well as some details of the head. An alternate version, named 'sz_hn_moyou_a5', is used by the 12th colossus. |
| sz_iwa_j_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Texture used on the lower part of the legs. An alternate version, named 'sz_iwa_j2', is used by the 3rd colossus. |
| sz_iwa_c3_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Texture of the crown and details on the head. Alternate versions of this texture include 'sz_iwa_c2' and 'sz_iwa_c4'. |
| sz_hifu_001_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Unknown texture. |
| sz_ware_i_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Unknown texture. |
 sz_ue_leaf_base |
Shunpei Suzuki & Fumito Ueda | Plant growth texture. |
| sz_ue_leafy_mip | Shunpei Suzuki & Fumito Ueda | Leaf patch texture. An alternate version, 'leafy', is used on various parts of the map. |
 sz_fur_kusa_e1 |
Shunpei Suzuki | One of the layers of the grass texture on top of the head. |
 sz_fur_kusa_e2 |
Shunpei Suzuki | One of the layers of the grass texture on top of the head. |
 sz_fur_kusa_e3 |
Shunpei Suzuki | One of the layers of the grass texture on top of the head. |
| sz_bone_004_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Unknown texture. |
| sz_tree_skin_e_halfsize | Shunpei Suzuki | Texture used on the upper part of the legs. An alternate version, named 'tree_skin_e_halfsize', is used on several parts of the map. |
| sz_hn_tree_leafs15_mip | Shunpei Suzuki & Hitoshi Niwa | Leaves texture. Possibly an alternate version of 'tree_leafs05'. |
| sz_branch_parts | Shunpei Suzuki | Branch texture. An alternate version, named 'branch_parts', is used by various 2D trees on the map. |
| sz_ab_zassou01c3 | Shunpei Suzuki & Katsuhiko Abe | Grass billboard used on the top of the colossus' head. An alternate version, named 'sz_ab_zassou01c3_b', is used on the 9th colossus' face in the E3 Demo. |
| sz_ico_leafs_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Unknown texture. |
| sz_ot_tree_tare2_mip | Shunpei Suzuki & Takeshi Ochiai | Grass overhang texture seen on the edges of the crown. An alternate version, named 'ot_tree_tare', is used on Kirin's Hill. |
| sz_ud_turu_tile2_mip | Shunpei Suzuki & Fumito Ueda | Vine textures growing on the crown. An alternate version, named 'ud_turu_tile', is used on several parts of the map. |
| sz_bone_003_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Unknown bone texture. |
 sz_white |
Shunpei Suzuki | Pure white texture. |
| sz_iwa_c5_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Another variant of the 'sz_iwa_c3_mip' texture. |
| sz_bone_005_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Bone texture. An alternate version, named 'sz_bone_005b', is used by the 9th colossus. |
| sz_kusa_haji_a_mip | Shunpei Suzuki | Unknown margin texture. |
 sz_shadow_c |
Shunpei Suzuki | Shadow texture. Also used on the Minotaur siblings. |
Strategy
According to the artbook, "it was defeated by leading it from water to land". This indicates that the player would've had to lead the boss out of the lake it woke up from, until they reached the main battle area. After that, the battle was simple: Slash the glowing weakpoints on Spider's legs. After the player had hit an unknown amount of them, it would have "destroyed its posture", allowing the player to climb it.[3]
Shadow of the Colossus - OPM demo compilation
At 0:58, Wander can be seen sweeping his sword on horseback, in the OPM demo.
In the OPM, PSU and E3 demos of the game, Wander had the ability to swing his sword sideways while on horseback, which was the main way to target its legs. This ability would be removed in all later versions.
Location
Spider lived in the unused arena known as Hillock; and while it's located somewhere in the "F" column in the artbook screenshots, it was quickly moved to "D3". The textures from Hillock are mostly found in areas surrounding D3, and one of the hill-like mountains in Geyser looks very similar to the one in the screenshot with the version of Spider with tentacles. The likely scenario is that the 9th colossus got moved from I3 to D3 after Spider got cut, merging both arenas together.
Development History
This colossus was created near the start of the game's development in 2003, and it used to be tested in Stage 12 before being placed on the world map.
Earlier design of Spider in Stage 12.[4]
The first known design of Spider had long black tentacles on its underside that likely would follow and attack the player. It also had spikes around its feet, and tendons similar to the ones from an earlier version of the 13th colossus on each of its six legs. It was around 20 meters high.
Uncropped version of one of the images from the Artbook depicting the later design of Spider. From the Chronic'art French magazine.
Some time later in 2003, its design would be changed. This new version no longer had the tentacles, instead having bright talons on its underside which generated pulse beams, similar to the early version of the 9th colossus' horns, as well as the ones from the 12th. The talons surrounded a sigil during the period of the screenshots, but it is unknown if this was changed afterwards. The tendon on the legs were replaced with glowing textures, making it easier to tell it was a weakpoint. The size was doubled to 38 meters high.
According to the PS3 Data Sheets, Spider had a unique HUD icon, which is an icon in the shape of the colossus that used to show the weakpoint locations in early builds.
Between the end of 2003 to the start of 2004, Spider was placed on the first seamless map, which was a map that was entirely flat, aside from the copied and pasted cliffs from the "parts library". Spider was temporarely placed next to the himeji bridge in quadrant F1, without making many modifications to the land to include its proper stage.
Later on in 2004, after the shape of the world map was completely changed, and the developers started using a height map to design the lands, Spider's arena was decided to be placed on quadrant D3. There exists no screenshots of Spider beyond this point, but it's assumed that it remained mostly the same during the rest of development. The only difference being Hillock, which was likely more in line with the earlier screenshot of Spider with tentacles, as that was its proper stage.
Texture segments for all of the unused idol statue models, each listing their own unique textures.
Spider most likely survived production until sometime nearing the latter half of 2004, much further than both Saru and Griffin, as those were cut at the earliest days of development. The evidence that Spider survived such a long time is that it had a unique idol statue in the Shrine of Worship, as indicated by the PS3 data sheets.
The volume control showing 21 colossi.
Despite surviving a long time, production on Spider was halted earlier than Sirius, Devil, Phoenix, Roc, and Yamori A, due to Spider being one of the few colossi to not have a volume control sheet in the PS3 data sheets. Besides Saru and Griffin obviously not having such sheets, the others that did not possess it were Worm and the unused last boss, with their production likely stopping around the same time as Spider. Hillock's texture segment also indicates that the arena was very crude, similar to Dune, Worm's stage.
Model of Spider's leg found in Dormin's body.
After the world map was reduced at the end of 2004, the 9th colossus was moved to D3, and its arena was merged with Hillock. The only remnant of Spider is now found in Dormin's model, as its six legs are placed on its back.
Trivia
- A texture segment named "spider_pulse_tume" exists in the sheets, while there also exists unused texture segments for a "kame_pulse_tuno" and a "poseidon_pulse_tuno". The word "tuno" is japanese for "horn", meaning those two are likely the bright light which surrounds the horns of the 9th and 12th colossi before they fire pulse beams; in Spider's case, instead of "tuno" there's "tume", which means nail, claw or talon, likely being the ones on the underside of Spider. All of them use the same "kame_pulse_tuno" texture.
Texture segments of Spider's tentacles.
- There exists an alternate design of Spider with long, black tentacles coming from its underside. The origin of this picture is from a Famitsu magazine dated December 2nd 2005, and it's likely to be an earlier model of it. Tentacles related to Spider were also found in the sheet data.
- Spider is the unused colossus with the greatest amount of officially released images; it has six different images showing its body or sections of it from various angles.
- An old theory placed Spider at F0, since there was remains of land in the G0 quadrant found in earlier versions of the game. However, at that point in development, several areas in the map had that exact same style, as an early clip from 'F5' available on the Nico bonus DVD, shows the same type of cliffs.
Gallery
References
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120106194334/http://www.glitterberri.com/shadow-of-the-colossus/extended-developer-interview/making-of-the-colossi/ | Making of the Colossi translated by Glitterberri.
- ↑ https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/File:French%2Barticle%2Btranslated_800.jpg | Chronic'art Interview.
- ↑ http://www.glitterberri.com/content/ico_series/sotc/artbook/195.jpg | Artbook Page 194 translated by Glitterberri.
- ↑ https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/File:FamitsuPhoenixSpider.jpg | Famitsu Interview, December 2nd 2005.