Shadow Of The Colossus Is A Powerful Fairy Tale Because It Resists Condemning The Player

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Shadow of the Colossus is celebrating its 20-year anniversary today, October 18, 2025. Below, we examine the moral complexity of its narrative as told through its silent protagonist.

Does a silent protagonist equal a self-insert? The logic of many video games dictates yes. Heroes like Gordon Freeman and Link have been forever silent, only grunting or shouting. Even Master Chief, who does have a voice, obscures his face. Under his mask, there could be anyone there.

Despite this common logic, silence is often alienating. Few games embody this better than the works of Fumido Ueda. The protagonists of Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, and The Last Guardian are taciturn, often silent or speaking only a fantastical language, which is either subtitled or not immediately understood. Moments of speech, or even of action outside of player input, are profound and rare.

Under the logic of silent identification, these protagonists would be simple, iconographic player stand-ins. Yet Ueda’s curated gaps create an empathetic distance from his games’ heroes. Over the 20 years since Shadow of the Colossus’ release, it has proven its profundity as a moral fable because of its distance from the player.