The games industry might be built on borrowed ideas, but new ones have to come from somewhere – even if Fumito Ueda says "the era of game mechanics is over"

A warrior overlooking ruins on a grassy field beneath a grey sky in Shadow of the Colossus.

"The era of game mechanics is over," The Last Guardian director Fumito Ueda said in a recent interview. "I wonder if we are no longer in the era where we need to provide new devices or new game mechanics every single game."

If anybody's earned the right to borrow a few ideas, it's Ueda. When Peter Molyneux announced that Fable 3 would feature a handholding mechanic, he was quick to acknowledge that inspiration came from Ico – the breakthrough Ueda game in which the titular horned protagonist takes the hand of a princess earmarked for an evil end and steers her to safety.