Spider

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Spider
Profile
Height	38 m / 124 ft
Width	21.5 m / 70 ft
Location	Hillock (D3)
Designer	Shunpei Suzuki (sz)
Gameplay
Agro	Yes
Sigils	1 major (underside)

Spider (蜘蛛 Kumo) is an unused colossus that was cut from the final version of the game. 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."

"The concept was great in theory, but difficult to create in practice. We were unable to make it happen during the programming phase."

Appearance

The Spider has two known versions. The earlier design, which is seen in an image from a Famitsu Interview, had long black tentacles that came out of its underside, 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.

The later version of Spider seen in the artbook no longer had the tentacles, instead having a pulse beam attack similar to the ones from the 9th and 12th colossi, the tendon on the legs were replaced with glowing weakspots which would need to be slashed to make it fall, and it also featured sharp talons on its underside, surrounding its sigil. The size was increased to 38 meters high.

Both designs had six legs and a hexagonal-shaped head with a crown. Its face was somewhat simplistic, seemingly only having the stone eyes and four thin slabs for a mouth.

Strategy

Shadow of the Colossus - OPM demo compilation

At 0:58, Wander can be seen sweeping his sword on horseback, in the OPM demo.

According to the artbook, "it was defeated by leading it from water to land", so the player would have to lead it out of a lake, until they reached the main battle area. As stated above, Spider's weak spots were on its legs, and after Wander had hit an unknown amount it would have "destroyed its posture".

In the OPM, PSU and E3 demos of the game, Wander has 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.

Trivia

• The swiping motion from Agro's back required for Spider's fight is still in the PSU preview and earlier versions of the game.
• 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.
• 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.
• According to the 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.
• 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.
• Spider's legs are found in the final version of the game on Dormin's back.
• 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.
• Spider is one of the few colossi to not have a volume control sheet, the others are Saru, Griffin, Worm and Evis.

Gallery

Underside of Spider. Note the blue ball of energy at the center of its spikes.

Uncropped version of the previous image, from the Chronic'art French magazine.

Spider's legs showing the weakpoints.

Wander and Agro riding underneath Spider.

The top of Spider's head.

Wander, in blue garments, on top of Spider's head.

Alternate design for Spider that originated from a Famitsu magazine dated December 2nd 2005.

Chronic'art French interview with Fumito Ueda (translated).

Model of Spider's leg found in Dormin's body.

The Famitsu magazine showing Phoenix and the alternate design of Spider.

Spider's texture segment.

Texture segments of Spider's tentacles.

References