Monolith Soft has become one of Nintendo's top developers working on huge IPs like Xenoblade Chronicles and also assisting as a support team on multiple other projects.
If the release of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 wasn't already impressive enough this year, it seems the Japanese studio has provided assistance with Splatoon 3 as well. The company's website has been updated to reflect this. It's not mentioned what exactly it did, but it previously supported Splatoon 2 and Splatoon - so it's not all that surprising to see it's back.
This is now the eighth Nintendo Switch game the company has provided support for. It's also helping out with the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and has an Expansion Pass planned for Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
Monolith Soft in recent years has expanded to hundreds of employees across multiple offices. It has also previously assisted with games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and many other Nintendo titles in the past. Have you been enjoying Splatoon 3 so far? How about Xenoblade Chronicles 3? Tell us down below.
[source monolithsoft.co.jp]
Comments 33
Best acquisition ever.
They are deceivingly one of Nintendo's most important studios by the sound of it. I'm not a game freak hater by no means but I wonder if the Pokémon company could lend monolith for a bit?
For how much we know Monolith for Xenoblade, they are absolute wizards on the technical support side of things as well. Zelda, Animal Crossing, Splatoon and I'm 90% sure they've even worked on Pokemon. All gigantic franchises that they've helped run as smoothly as possible, fantastic stuff.
Feels like Mono does some work on every major Nintendo release these days.
Props to Monolith Soft Kyoto for the nice support for Nintendo's IP. The branch was set up to collaborate with Ninty internal dev teams afterall especially EAD.
Though I hope to see something new from the Tokyo branch even though they're the team that's providing assistance to BotW2; hopefully their rumored action game. After XC3 I'm thirsty for a brand new Monolith Soft IP.
I think I remember them working on the world design for BOTW, which was phenomenal. Hope they keep up the good work.
Why is this news? Internal studios working on multiple games and this is only a highlight because trolls like decoupling Monolithsoft and Nintendo.
Edit: in true NL fashion, they double down on decoupling Monolithsoft and Nintendo by writing an article about Monolithsoft's work. Not getting me to click on that crap.
@Fizza It was never confirmed that Monolith was involved with PLA and the company was never credited in-game although I believe the rumor was some Monolith employees were credited. I think it was the same with SwSh
@Zyph I heard whispers they were involved in PLA but I didn't know there were similar rumours for SwSh ? Now that you mention it, I feel like I heard something very similar in regards to them potentially working for Scarlet/Violet as well. Interesting how they always seem to come up huh?
Keep in mind that they are two different studios. Monolith Soft Tokyo develops the Xenoblade games. Monolith Kyoto is located in the same building as the rest of Nintendo EPD and they are an assist team for EPD. So it's not the same people working on Xenoblade and Splatoon (and whatever other games they co-develop). Monolith Kyoto may as well be included in Nintendo EPD.
Plus they monolith ha done a good job with botw 1 and now botw 2.
@Zyph monolith is supposely working on a new ip for switch a medieval type rpg game.
@RiasGremory Yes that's the one I'm referring to c/o Monolith Tokyo.
@Fizza I wouldn't be surprised as Gamefreak already moved-in with Nintendo (or at least in the same area as Nintendo EPD).
Maybe they should help out gamefreak next...
Imagine a Pokémon game with an open world like xenoblade chronicles 3 has, plus an actual cinematic story with a decent plot.
Monolithsoft is truly in a tier of their own. Truly one of Nintendo's best acquisitions
Monolith soft is constantly casting W’s. S3 is one of the best looking switch games
Regardless if you care for Xenoblade or not, Monolith Soft has proven to be a vital developer to Nintendo. Glad they’re working with Nintendo.
And then people wonder why Xenoblade Chronicles is flourishing. Monolith Soft helps out other Nintendo studios so much, and then they get more resources for their own games.
Any Nintendo game that has a sprawling overworld area, usually with huge draw distances, that needs optimizing, you can probably bet Monolith Soft will have a hand in it.
@IronMan30
It's not necessarily news as much as it is simply appraisal. Monolith Soft has never gotten this much treatment back when the staff worked at Square-Enix and when also their games were published by Bandai-Namco. Nintendo gave them a much greater purpose outside of simply developing Xeno games.
I'm just taking a break from Splatoon 3's online for now. Admittedly my enthusiasm for the game took a bit of a nose dive overnight as things weren't going my way let's just say. I wasn't angry but my heart just wasn't in it anymore.
I'll check out the Single Player Story I think as I've heard that it's quite lengthy compared to the previous 2 games.
Explains a lot, like a lot.
Man I am noticing a theme of Monolith coming in to help with big core Nintendo games: the Splatoon series, BOTW, even Mario Kart 8 if I recall correctly. Seems like they are one acquisition that Nintendo must be very happy with.
So Nintendo bought them in 2007
Now it all makes sense.
Not surprised, they chip in with a lot of bigger games.
What I want to know is why Bandai Namco is in the credits.
Wasn’t that the Kyoto branch? Not to diminish their work but that’s what that team does. This isn’t really news unless someone wants to know the names of dev teams. And if that is the case then Nintendo EPD needs a shoutout for doing the majority of the work.
@RubyCarbuncle The matchmaking doesn’t feel the same as Splatoon 2. In addition to changing weapon balancing, I think they also changed how they rank weapons when matchmaking. I’ve had more unbalanced teams in terms of composition in Splatoon 3 than I’m used to in Splatoon 2.
BotW, XC3, Splatoon 3, BotW2, they really will work on anything in the world but XCX2, huh?
@IronMan30 Getting mad when you don't even know the basics that they are a first party developer that Nintendo has a controlling stake in, they are not an internal Nintendo Studio like EAD. They're former Squaresoft and have history before being acquired by Nintendo. If you actually read that article, before disparaging it, you might have known that.
@Specters They are owned by Nintendo. So, I can see where IronMan30 is coming from. Though getting angry about it is not the solution.
@Wilforce Probably or maybe I'm just rusty? I know last night when I started playing it again I was getting back into it and I know for the first time ever since Splatoon 1 I actually won a match without getting killed at all or maybe they were new Players to the series who knows.
A collab for Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade would be cool
Im thinking a splatfest, locker items, gear or even a weapon like a splatana monado or something
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