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StarTopic Monolith Soft Development and Speculation |ST|

sanstea said:
You definitely have to account for how much their dedicated BotW2 support team takes up. How many staff members from MS did work on the original BotW?
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About 50 people from Monolith Tokyo assisted on Breath of the Wild according to a 2018 Takahashi interview.

For the record, Division 2 seems to be the group assisting on Zelda. The Division 2 recruitment page was the one using Zelda imagery and I doubt the new Division 1 project Takahashi's been talking about is Zelda when he had no involvement on Breath of the Wild.
 
Almadel said:
The new website looks nice.....but I don't think it necessarily means anything is happening.

It is interesting though that they ditched the night sky/space theme for the background and are using various blue sky/white clouds instead now. And using the same green as Pyra/Mythra's core crystal to highlight text.

I'm also surprised at how small the Kyoto studio is, so I hope Honne being back in Tokyo does mean he's working on something.
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I think it is mainly with all the rumours and little tid bits that people make a connection. It really is quite the coincidence that all this happens together :p. Then again we can also have no news till April or May who knows.
 
TheGreatLugia said:
About 50 people from Monolith Tokyo assisted on Breath of the Wild according to a 2018 Takahashi interview.

For the record, Division 2 seems to be the group assisting on Zelda. The Division 2 recruitment page was the one using Zelda imagery and I doubt the new Division 1 project Takahashi's been talking about is Zelda when he had no involvement on Breath of the Wild.
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Yeah, it's definitely not the Takahashi dev group on Zelda. I also doubt that the teams are evenly distributed in terms of staff so I'd guess at least 150 people at MS are working on XC3 in the crunch phase. Leaves maybe around 50 people to work on something different in one way or another.
 
They made Xenoblade 2,Project X Zone 2 and Zelda at the same time with a staff of 103 (133-30) Xenoblade 2 was a bit understaffed but even then with 238 (273-35) now it wont make sense to only work on Zelda and Xenoblade , Xenoblade 3 staff would need to be 3 time bigger and the Zelda support team 2 times bigger for the numbers to fit and neither would make much sense
 
What if we're looking at a Baten Kaitos remaster collection for Switch? Wasn't there some trademark activity around the second game in Europe, despite the original release skipping Europe?

A smaller project like that could be a milestone on the way to a new game in the series.
 
MetalLord said:
They made Xenoblade 2,Project X Zone 2 and Zelda at the same time with a staff of 103 (133-30) Xenoblade 2 was a bit understaffed but even then with 238 (273-35) now it wont make sense to only work on Zelda and Xenoblade , Xenoblade 3 staff would need to be 3 time bigger and the Zelda support team 2 times bigger for the numbers to fit and neither would make much sense
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I'm thinking they would outsource way less in every department than when they developed XC2 so that also adds up.

I'm just trying to stay conservative here because as I've seen it, development teams always seem to need way more staff and manpower than anyone expects.
 
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Considering the studio's expansion and the possibility of increasing development projects within, as is suggested through the recurring discourse around Honne, it's fascinating to consider that, in this age of crazy acquisitions, Monolith Soft could end up doing a non-insignificant chunk of heavy lifting for Nintendo.

As far as acquisitions go, they have paid off for Nintendo, and their importance seems likely only to further increase.

sanstea said:
It's crazy saying it out loud that Monolith Soft is Nintendo's second largest development studio. They are bigger than all the studios Nintendo has worked with for two decades or more - they are bigger than HAL, Game Freak, Intelligent Systems, Retro and Next Level Games. Hell, Monolith Soft's Tokyo branch is bigger than EPD Tokyo.
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From the interview that Takahashi gave around the launch of DE, Production Group 1 was only working on that and the new game, which we know is at least Xenoblade related due to the hiring call and Takahashi’s comments to focus on the brand. Meaning that a theoretical new title would be handled by Production Group 2 if it was in development prior to 2020.

If Honne left the Kyoto office in October 2018, which sort of lines up with Octo Expansion being his most recent Special Thanks credit, then he‘s either on the next Xenoblade or something else entirely.
 
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MisterSpo said:
What if we're looking at a Baten Kaitos remaster collection for Switch? Wasn't there some trademark activity around the second game in Europe, despite the original release skipping Europe?

A smaller project like that could be a milestone on the way to a new game in the series.
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Baten Kaitos released in PAL, btw. Only BKO did not release outside of JP/NA.
 
oh god,i tried searching for Xenoblade Definitive Edition Lead Character Artist Masaharu Yamazaki (ヤマザキ マサハル) and...

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ILikeFeet said:
the presence or lack thereof of hiring pages don't really mean much these days. hiring never stops, especially when there's a shortage of workers in the field
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Yeah but it fall in place with all recent "rumours" about the project and the timing since its beginning. It's not smoking gun but it makes sense in a few ways.
 
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FWIW, I don't think they are the same people. The Masaharu Yamazaki that worked on Xenoblade DE(and 2/Torna) is a character modeller, not a designer/artist.

EDIT: Actually I'm wrong, it is the same person but they're not a character designer at Monolithsoft.
 
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MetalLord said:
no,its the same guy,a former artist from dingo confirmed
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Yeah, I just edited because I saw that after seeing him mention on Monolith's website that he used to do character modelling, as well as character and UI design at another games company lol
 
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Vantell said:
I think it is mainly with all the rumours and little tid bits that people make a connection. It really is quite the coincidence that all this happens together :p. Then again we can also have no news till April or May who knows.
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I hope it means something! Any longer and I'm gonna worry their still having development issues.


I'd love it if MS could get back to making multiple titles like they used too. More stuff like Disaster: Day of Crisis or I'd personally love it if they made a survival-horror game. Or, another personal wish of mine if they are still stuck helping with othe Nintendo IP's, a game that would absolutely not cause any controversy whatsoever, a stylish actioned based Zelda game....starring Zelda.
 
This is all a rough estimate based on credits but around
30-ish people on Splatoon 2
35+ people who worked on the Octo Expansion dlc (increase is new hires, some names haven't appeared since, even in ACNH)
90+ worked on Breath of the Wild
70-80 on the BotW Expansion (Some more of the new hires are here)
80+ on Xenoblade 2
60+ on Torna
10+ on Animal Crossing
70-80 for Xenoblade DE, with a bit more staff for Future Connected


Roughly 50 Staff from BotW are still M.I.A.
30 (Base Game), 20 (Expansion)

About half of Splatoon 2 (15 people) worked on XBDE or ACNH
Everyone involved with the Octo Expansion (except one person) only worked on ANCH or are missing

around 20 People who worked on Torna but not XBDE are M.I.A. (Some may be contract) but some are the lead positions
so about 70 people total have been missing since 2018 with an additional 120 hired since the start of 2018 until the end of 2021

Most of the 120 were for the Fantasy project, Zelda and Xenoblade teams.
 
MisterSpo said:
What if we're looking at a Baten Kaitos remaster collection for Switch? Wasn't there some trademark activity around the second game in Europe, despite the original release skipping Europe?

A smaller project like that could be a milestone on the way to a new game in the series.
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Still holding out hope this actually happens, I own both (and paid well over €100 for Origins) and would love to see a remaster of it some day. Those pre-rendered background look great, but not so much on a 4k display. Couldn't finish the it either since my Wii stopped reading discs :(
 
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I hope we see something soon. The website refresh may not mean anything, but it’s something to cling on to after four years.
 
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TheMoon said:
Oh you meant the "original release of the SECOND game" - sentence structure threw me off there.
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Yes, it was more ambiguous than I intended. I was just trying to catch out any natural satellites that might be around...
 
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Oh boy, I sure hope this is not the community that gets disappointed by tomorrow's Direct. First half of 2022 probably seals the deal though (totally not jinxing it).
 
MisterSpo said:
What if we're looking at a Baten Kaitos remaster collection for Switch? Wasn't there some trademark activity around the second game in Europe, despite the original release skipping Europe?

A smaller project like that could be a milestone on the way to a new game in the series.
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That would be nice, but who knows. I seem to recall someone on era shooting it down due Bamco saying no behind the scenes. I don't think it was one of the usual rumor people, but I don't remember who it was.
 
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Luckily tomorrow is not the day we start fighting about the same old songs and dances again and shitting on some Xeno games to defend other Xeno games.

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Really excited for a potential title tomorrow, but if it doesn't come I'm hoping having this thread will help me go a little less insane waiting 🙏
 
EpitaphMacha said:
Really excited for a potential title tomorrow, but if it doesn't come I'm hoping having this thread will help me go a little less insane waiting 🙏
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I think the pandemic must have set them back, this is becoming the longest period of time not having a new Xeno game.
 
Crusters said:
Wait what? X wait was brutal, has it really been longer?
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Depending on the release date it could be longer, it's longer for most of us already since I doubt a lot of people here played the original Japanese version of XC1 in 2010. Ofc torna and DE soften the blow a bit
 
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Crusters said:
Wait what? X wait was brutal, has it really been longer?
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As @Zeal543 said, it depends on the release date. If it's 2023 it'll be over 5 years since the release of 2. Torna and DE were meant to tide us over but now this will be the longest gap between main entries.
 
Dunban said:
As @Zeal543 said, it depends on the release date. If it's 2023 it'll be over 5 years since the release of 2. Torna and DE were meant to tide us over but now this will be the longest gap between main entries.
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Thinking on its I think the wait for X was so brutal because they gave us a frigging amazing trailer years and years before we would get the game.
 
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