During development, it was planned that Shadow of the Colossus would have had a happy ending. The script was scrapped as the team felt that when dealing with the topic of resurrection, a happy ending would not be possible. The alternative ending has been alluded to by director Ueda multiple times. In 2023 there was an artbook released called The World of Fumito Ueda which contains never seen before storyboards of the alternative ending. I want to read through this storyboard to see how the alternative ending panned out. Then I want to look at how the alternative happy ending was described in the official artbook/guidebook as well as being mentioned in a Famitsu interview.
00:00 INTRO/Ending Recap
04:12 Alternative Ending Storyboard
14:59 Interview Artbook
18:41 Interview Famitsu