Tag: Monolith Soft

Recently Game Informer had a chance to sit down with the Director of Xenoblade Chronicles X, Tetsuya Takahashi and the Director of Nintendo’s Software Planning and Development group, Genki Yokota to discuss key learnings from this latest project. During the course of the interview the topic of Zelda U came up and the fact that Monolith Soft had helped on Skyward Sword. Both Takahashi and Yokoto weighed in on the learnings from creating a massive game like Xenoblade Chronicles X and…

Nintendo ally Monolith Soft, the company behind Baten Kaitos, recent masterpiece Xenoblade Chronicles, and the eventual Wii U JRPG X, opened a second studio in Kyoto a few years ago to collaborate with the Nintendo headquarters on their home-based projects. The sub-developer has about thirty employees that help Nintendo proper with their larger projects, particularly in the graphics department, it would seem. They were involved in the development of Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3, Spirit Tracks, and Skyward Sword previously, and have now added A Link Between Worlds to their list.

This time, though, Monolith’s branch office had a bigger role to play than usual. Hiromasa Shikata, who works for the branch, made his directorial debut with A Link Between Worlds. Judging by the world’s reaction, that must have been a pretty satisfying debut. Monolith has been making quite a name for themselves.

Monolith Soft, a Japanese video game development company has been confirmed to work on A Link Between Worlds alongside one of Nintendo’s main studios. You may not have heard of them before unless you’ve played the Xeno series, but they have played a role in some other Nintendo games. Hit the jump to learn more!

You may know Monolith Soft. Ever since Xenoblade Chronicles was localized we’ve been getting more news about the developer. Although they may have a history in Japan, Monolith Soft is one of the west’s hot new studios. They now have an audience out here. Recently the team worked on Project X Zone for the Nintendo 3DS. Their latest project for Wii U has a temporary name: X. It should be arriving some time next year.

Since Monolith Soft has grown more popular, the media has given it more attention. It was recently revealed that the developer helped with the graphics for a little game called The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The team also helped create the world of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. It’s nice to see Nintendo getting help from other studios. Nintendo is understaffed, so they need all the help they can get.

Did Monolith Soft do a good job on the two games? Sound off in the comments.

Some fans have been asking for the Zelda series to be handed over to another studio to get a brand new, fresh take on the franchise. The studio that comes up time and time again is Retro due to their frequent involvement in other major Nintendo franchises (Metroid, Donkey Kong). When asked if that could ever be a possibility, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto stated that while he would have no issue with Retro working on a Zelda title in the…