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[Jonneh3003]

Good grief at some of the replies I'm reading.

Monolith's work on Zelda U / NX will likely be not much different then the work they did with Skyward Sword and Pikmin 3 in the art environment and programming side of things.

Hell you even have people using the music of Xenoblade X as a case for them to not work on Zelda U.

I'd hope for less knee jerk reactions and more actual well informed responses. I thought this place is NeoGAF, not GameFAQs.

But Monolith Soft being being involved can't just relate to assisting with assets and polish! It must mean Hiroyuki Sawano is at his desk coming up with rap lyrics.

 

[skypunch]

Just don't put them in charge of filling out the world and we'll be okay.

Looks like they haven't judging by the gameplay videos

 

[Effect]

Not surprising. I have a conspiracy theory that maybe Xenoblade X was so allowed to be so big because Nintendo wanted to prototype some tech for Zelda.

.

Not a crazy theory. The technology that was developed and perfected building Xenoblade Chronicles X was likely seen as an important long term investment for Nintendo. With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild likely being the very first game to benefit from it. I would not be be surprised if the importance whatever they're calling the engine, tools, etc outweighed the cost to make XCX. If it did well then great if not then that might have been okay because it's likely to benefit other games going forward.

Similar to how EA is having everything powered by Frostbite now, Nintendo is likely doing the same with their games going forward when it comes to the tech that came from the Xenoblade series.We won't know for certain until we see NX games but no way in hell were Monolith Soft simply doing assist creation, etc. Their fingerprints have to be all over Zelda.

 

[hemo memo]

Over 100 from Monolith alone? how many people working on this project?

 

[TheJoRu]

Are you butthurt that I'm not giving EPD the glory?

Pardon? You were implying because Monolith were helping out that they are responsible for questioning the conventions of Zelda, when the most reasonable answer is that the main developers at Nintendo EPD with the most contact with the director and producer are responsible for it. That's it. I like both developers.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Over 100 from Monolith alone? how many people working on this project?

It's Nintendo's biggest project ever, IIRC.

 

[Mpl90]

...And that's why Botw's opening was quite similar to Xenoblade X's one

 

[Eusis]

This shouldn't be news or surprising at all. Monolithsoft had a bunch of people work on Skyward Sword too. It's obvious Nintendo needs more manpower for big console titles like this, and Monolithsoft's experience in doing bigger 3D RPGs is a valuable asset.



A good number of Xenoblade staff also worked on Skyward Sword. Not just art either. Planners and so on.

It's kind of crazy thinking about it. I doubt in 1998 I could've imagined after OoT and Xenogears that those developers would collaborate, yet here we are!

Though that's probably just a small handful from Monolith that were involved with both Xenogears and this.

 

[TheMoon]

You sound so mad. Grow up, you child.

??!?

 

[Dark Cloud]

...And that's why Botw's opening was quite similar to Xenoblade X's one

Also, in the trailer when they revealed the name at the end it reminded me of the title screen of Xenoblade Chronicles. Lol

 

[Ridley327]

...And that's why Botw's opening was quite similar to Xenoblade X's one

At least most people won't have to read a 100 page e-manual to figure out how to fight this time around!

 

[Mpl90]

Also, in the trailer when they revealed the name at the end it reminded me of the title screen of Xenoblade Chronicles. Lol

In my mind, "Wake up Link" is the new "My name's Elma / Watashi wa Eruma", lol

 

[blu]

They are probably just making assets. Not like they are designing anything.

The terrain engine in BotW looks like an evolution of XCX's.

 

[NeonZ]

I like Takahashi. I'm just saying Xeno3's new main avatar is hopefully more fluid in movement and isn't stiff in the story.

Even in Xenoblade X itself, the avatar has much more presence in the sidequests than in the main story. I don't get what the main story writer was thinking (one of the interviews indicates that the main story and sidequests directly tied to it had a different writer from the other content, which is likely why they're handled so differently).

 

[Instro]

123 as of two years ago. They've been aggressively hiring since then for both studios, so it might be larger now. They haven't updated the stats on the company page for a while now. 150+ would not be surprising. So having about 100 working as support on assets and polish of a full production project like Zelda, and 50+ doing pre-production or early production on the next projects seems reasonable.

Yeah I would think the same.

I was wondering about that, but.. I don't know it seems to me the game doesn't have XBC performances in term of draw distance... They should help more

But XBC also has serious draw distance problems.

 

[Jonneh3003]

Looks like they haven't judging by the gameplay videos

 

[skypunch]

Haha. It was only a joke, which is why I put the winky face. I definitely don't hate Nintendo.

 

[timetokill]

Which Monolith, though?

One of them is an art asset house that helps on almost every Nintendo game.

lmao

 

[OmegaDL50]

Yeah I would think the same.



But XBC also has serious draw distance problems.

The world had to be scaled while on foot and when you were in the mech, and considering you could cross vast distances while in the mech in a short time frame, I think the scaling was more suited for when you are on foot.

I don't expect Zelda to have this issue because even Horse travel wouldn't nearly be fast as the Mech travel in the sense of needing to stream geometry and objects in the distance to keep up the pace while you travel as fast as you could in Xenoblade X.

The install packs alleviate most of this as well. Reading data from an external drive is apparently much faster than streaming assets from the disk. In fact having a cache on the HDD on hand seems to fix a lot of this particular issue when it comes to open world games.

 

[Holy Order Sol]

I was under that assumption due to stuff that was said before, didn't remember clearly though.

Haha. It was only a joke, which is why I put the winky face. I definitely don't hate Nintendo.

by joke you mean attempt to stir shit
fuck a winky face

 

[StarStabbedMoon]

We probably shouldn't read too much into this, unless you could sense the Xenoblade influence on Smash Bros. 4 and Pikmin 3....

That said, it's certainly possible they've sought input from Monolith Soft for their open world and RPG mechanics experience, this could even be the "different programmers" Anouma was talking about. The scifi theme is probably just a coincidence... but we can dream.

Wasn't this already known?

assumed but now confirmed.

Zelda team should add some Sawano tracks to make it better =D.

YES!

We're stuck on a different planet...

 

[AlphaDragoon]

They did this before, but it's still cool that they're going to draw on their experiences from Xenoblade and XCX. I personally would be okay with a Takahashi-led Zelda game, would be a wild ride.

 

[-Horizon-]

Well, thanks for the confirmation. We all had our suspicions.

 

[lord_of_flood]

Pretty sure it's the co-operation studio that's separate from Monolith's main studio, but nice to have confirmation nonetheless.

 

[Gaogaogao]

you mean monolith soft

 

[TheGreatLugia]

Pretty sure it's the co-operation studio that's separate from Monolith's main studio, but nice to have confirmation nonetheless.

In the OP:

During an interview at E3, legendary developer Shigeru Miyamoto told us, “Yes they are involved in this Zelda. People from Tokyo and Kyoto are working together on this. There is a team of over 100 [from Monolith] helping work on this project, and their work has really been helpful.”

Both studios are working on the game. For a bit of context on the 100 employees quote, Monolith Soft had about 120 employees in total back in 2014.

 

[Milly Osworth]

What is the budget on Zelda? 100 million?

 

[Ridley327]

What is the budget on Zelda? 100 million?

I sincerely doubt that. What would count as high-end AAA gaming for Nintendo would probably be entry level at best with everyone else in the industry.

 

[TheGreatLugia]

From a November 2015 interview with Tetsuya Takahashi (Gamespot):

Back in October, Monolith Soft posted a notice about a "mass hiring" for 3D designers, and many assumed another one of these lengthy JRPGs was in the studio's future. But Takahashi explained that that particular posting was for support roles; in the past, the company has helped on titles like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and more recently, both new Animal Crossing 3DS games and Splatoon. Monolith is currently supporting a handful of other Nintendo projects, specifically projects needing map design and "interesting adventure elements."

The studio might be helping with a bit more than programming, art, and asset design since Takahashi mentioned the project needing map design and "interesting adventure elements."

 

[DiipuSurotu]

 

[AntMurda]

They did the same thing on skyward sword. They helped with animation and graphic assets - both Kyoto and Tokyo. There's probably like 500 people working on this game.

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

So I guess these "younger developers" who were questioning the traditions of Zelda were Monolith Soft employees.

I was afraid of that. Aonuma's recent comments about a group of programmers who studied how AAA titles were made (isn't Xenoblade one?) gave me some hope that it was a less experienced team within EAD instead.

Miyamoto is nowhere near this game.

But why?

 

[AntMurda]

I was afraid of that. Aonuma's recent comments about a group of programmers who studied how AAA titles were made (isn't Xenoblade one?) gave me some hope that it was a less experienced team within EAD instead.


But why?

Monolith programmers don't touch internal Nintendo games. Just the graphic assistants.

 

[TheGreatLugia]

I was afraid of that. Aonuma's recent comments about a group of programmers who studied how AAA titles were made (isn't Xenoblade one?) gave me some hope that it was a less experienced team within EAD instead.

It's not AAA. Takahashi calls Xenoblade a mid-tier series.

 

[Smellycat]

That is great news!! Over 100 people from Monolith? Just how big is this game? lol

 

[MemoryHumanity]

Yup, you can tell. Probably uses their texture streaming/LOD tech in some capacity. The draw distance is pretty impressive.

 

[aBarreras]

you know most of the game's design choices are being spearheaded by new, young, don't-give-a-fuck-about-tradition team members, right

like Aonuma and Fujibayashi are producing and directing respectively but Aonuma's been rather clear this E3 in numerous interviews that the new kids are really steering this ship. you have nothing to worry about. and Miyamoto is nowhere near this game.

i read somewhere here on gaf that miyamoto is checking that link movement and intereaction with the world are smooth or something like that

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

Monolith programmers don't touch internal Nintendo games. Just the graphic assistants.

I wish that were true, but Aonuma referred to them
as programmers in his recent Time interview and said that they influenced him to destroy the traditions he inherited one by one.

This is definitely the first time we’ve created a game this large. We didn’t know where to start. So it happened to be there was a team that was working on creating a larger world. And this team was a group of younger developers. So we had our old programmers from the Zelda team take a step aside, so we could introduce this new group of programmers.

But then these new, younger developers had no clue about how past Zeldas had been created. The group of new staff actually would ask us, like ‘Well I know that it’s been done, traditionally, in other Zelda titles, but why does it have to be that way?’ And among those questions there were some I just couldn’t answer, that I didn’t know the answer to myself. That was because I just took those things on as a tradition, and I didn’t really know why the tradition existed.

When you think about it, maybe those things really didn’t need to be there in the modern world, those traditions. So I started destroying these traditions I’d inherited in the series one by one. But it’s a process that takes a lot of time. And because we were destroying everything we’d done in the past, and rebuild new ideas from the ground up, that was the hardest thing, and it’s really taken a long time to create the thing I most wanted to create.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Please don't end up like XCX.

 

[-Horizon-]

From a November 2015 interview with Tetsuya Takahashi (Gamespot):


The studio might be helping with a bit more than programming, art, and asset design since Takahashi mentioned the project needing map design and "interesting adventure elements."

The rock valley area in the trailer did feel like something I've seen from Monolith Soft.

 

[Ridley327]

I wish that were true, but Aonuma referred to them
as programmers in his recent Time interview and said that they influenced him to destroy the traditions he inherited one by one.

That doesn't point to the programmers being from Monolith Soft at all. There's plenty of young blood in Nintendo right now without having to bring in Monolith Soft to make suggestions like that.

 

[Ck1]

Seriously what Nintendo has been able to do with this Zelda, my hope is that we see a Metroid reboot that allows for this level of interaction and creativity on NX...

 

[Kyzer]

Not a crazy theory. The technology that was developed and perfected building Xenoblade Chronicles X was likely seen as an important long term investment for Nintendo. With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild likely being the very first game to benefit from it. I would not be be surprised if the importance whatever they're calling the engine, tools, etc outweighed the cost to make XCX. If it did well then great if not then that might have been okay because it's likely to benefit other games going forward.

Similar to how EA is having everything powered by Frostbite now, Nintendo is likely doing the same with their games going forward when it comes to the tech that came from the Xenoblade series.We won't know for certain until we see NX games but no way in hell were Monolith Soft simply doing assist creation, etc. Their fingerprints have to be all over Zelda.

Nintendo loves to experiment too. The entire DS was an experiment which led to the Wii and Wii U. It went so well we never got another gameboy. I expect Wii U steaming tech to be upgraded and integrated into Nx. We can look to triforce heroes for multiplayer ideas and albtw for non-linearity ideas. I always look at nintendo games and think about how what glimpses of the future they are secretly sneaking by us.

 

[engineer87]

Can't wait to see all the different lands that Monolith Soft helped design. I enjoyed all the different lands that you could visit XCX.

It be awesome if they include a forest that is inspired by Noctilum.

 

[MomoQca]

...And that's why Botw's opening was quite similar to Xenoblade X's one

Crap...you might be on to something. I bet the game will end with Zelda saying: "It's this kingdom. It's something about this kingdom."

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

That doesn't point to the programmers being from Monolith Soft at all. There's plenty of young blood in Nintendo right now without having to bring in Monolith Soft to make suggestions like that.

You're right, but this

So it happened to be there was a team that was working on creating a larger world.

in addition to the Miyamoto quote make it sound as though Monolith's programmers were brought in to replace the old Zelda team's programmers.

 

[TheGreatLugia]

You're right, but this

in addition to the Miyamoto quote make it sound as though Monolith's programmers were brought in to replace the old Zelda team's programmers.

Monolith wasn't working on Zelda this time last year. They only got brought in within the past 12 months at most.

 

[ffdgh]

Screw that

Get ACE+ and Yoko Shimomura to do the soundtrack. All of it.

Zelda with kingdom hearts like battle music? I never knew I wanted this.

 

[Calm Mind]

They are probably just making assets. Not like they are designing anything.

Many of the landscapes and terrain in BotW bare a strong resemblance to Monolith Softwares previous games.

 

[skypunch]

Many of the landscapes and terrain in BotW bare a strong resemblance to Monolith Softwares previous games.

Yup. The sandy rocky mountainous area in BotW definitely reminded me of Oblivia from XCX.