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Monolith Soft

The studio Xenogears' makers founded, from Namco's Xenosaga to Nintendo's Xenoblade

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A Tokyo developer founded on 1 October 1999 by Hirohide Sugiura, Tetsuya Takahashi and other former Square staff, with Namco as its main shareholder. It made the Xenosaga trilogy and Baten Kaitos, became a Nintendo subsidiary in 2007, and has since made the Xenoblade Chronicles series while helping to build many of Nintendo's own games, among them The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon.

Monolith Soft began as a group of people who wanted to finish a story. Tetsuya Takahashi had directed Xenogears at Square, a 1998 PlayStation role-playing game whose second disc ran short of time and money, and which its makers had described as one episode of a longer saga. In 1999 he and other Square staff set up their own company, with Namco as its backer, and started again with Xenosaga. Eight years later Nintendo bought the studio. It went on to make Xenoblade Chronicles, and to become one of the developers Nintendo leans on hardest for its own biggest games.

Fast facts

  • Founded: 1 October 1999, in Tokyo.
  • Founders: Hirohide Sugiura, who became its president and still heads it; Tetsuya Takahashi; and Yasuyuki Honne, all formerly of Square.
  • Owners: Namco at first; Nintendo from 2007; now wholly owned by Nintendo.
  • Games for Namco: Xenosaga Episode I, II and III on the PlayStation 2 (in America 2003, 2005 and 2006); Baten Kaitos (GameCube, 2003, with tri-Crescendo) and its sequel (2006); Namco x Capcom (PlayStation 2, 2005).
  • Games for Nintendo: Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii, 2008), Soma Bringer (DS, 2008), Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii, 2010), Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U, 2015), Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch, 2017), Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch, 2022).
  • Studios: headquarters in Tokyo, a second Tokyo studio at Osaki, and a studio in Kyoto.

Leaving Square

The founding story, as Sugiura told it to Famitsu in 2020, starts with Xenogears. He had not worked on the game but “fell in love” with it, and when a sequel proved impossible at Square, which was putting its money into the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, he set out to make a company that could carry the idea on. Monolith Soft’s own company profile says that Sugiura, who had worked at ASCII, Konami, Warp and Square, founded it in 1999, and that Takahashi and Honne, both from Square, took part in the founding. It was incorporated on 1 October 1999.

The money came from Namco. IGN Unplugged reported in 2001 that “Takahashi and a great many of Xenogears’ staff left Square after the game’s development concluded” and, “as Monolith Soft, a new company under the wing of Namco”, worked in secret on a project known only as Project X. It got its name, Xenosaga, at the Tokyo Game Show in the spring of 2001.

Xenosaga and the Namco years

Square kept the rights to Xenogears, so Xenosaga was a new story, though one that Hyper noted was full of references to the old one. Its episodes took their subtitles from books by Friedrich Nietzsche. Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht reached America in 2003, when Edge gave it seven out of ten. Its long cut-scenes were the point and the problem. Reviewing Episode II in 2005, Edge wrote that “cut-scenes are the new king, gameplay elements little more than lines to link the drama”, and warned that the episodic plan was “a rod for its own back”. Xenosaga had been planned in six parts; Electronic Gaming Monthly reported at the end of 2005 that Namco would “wrap up the planned six-part space opera series” with the third, due in America in the autumn of 2006.

Monolith made other things for Namco too. Baten Kaitos (2003), made with tri-Crescendo for the GameCube, fought its battles with cards drawn at speed from a deck, which Edge found demanded “beat ‘em up accuracy, unhesitating speed and mathematical awareness”. Namco x Capcom (2005), a strategy role-playing game for the PlayStation 2, gathered characters from both companies’ games; Edge described Monolith as the “Namco subsidiary” making it, and pointed out that its designers had to create most of the attacks themselves: Capcom’s Ryu had plenty of source material, but “how Klonoa handles himself in a fight is another matter”.

Nintendo

In 2007 Nintendo bought Monolith Soft from Namco Bandai. Gamasutra reported in April that Nintendo had taken 80% of the shares and that Namco Bandai, which had held 96%, would keep 16%. Edge reported later that year that Monolith had become a Nintendo subsidiary in May and was making Disaster: Day of Crisis, an action game about surviving natural disasters, for the Wii.

The big project was Xenoblade, released in Japan on 10 June 2010. Edge called it “the first major project to result from the acquisition”. Its world was the bodies of two dead giants, frozen mid-battle, with the people living on them, and Takahashi set out to keep the story from getting in the way of the game. “Ahead of the game’s Japanese release,” Edge wrote in its review, “he’s reported to have said that the cutscene-heavy approach of his previous titles was a ‘dead end’.” Edge thought the result showed that “Takahashi’s revised approach has led to focus and a return to creative form”, and that no role-playing game of the previous decade had shown “such a concerted focus” on redefining the genre “by learning from past mistakes”. It came to Europe in 2011 as Xenoblade Chronicles; at the end of that year Edge counted it among the year’s best role-playing games and noted that it had still not reached America. Takahashi went on to direct Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U, in which the player could pilot transforming robots in an open world, and two numbered sequels for the Switch.

Building Nintendo’s games

Much of Monolith Soft’s work since 2007 does not carry its name on the box. The studio’s own list of games includes a long column of titles where it did part of the development under contract. For Nintendo these include Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011), Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2012), Pikmin 3 (2013), The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2013), Splatoon (2015) and its sequels, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020), The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) and Mario Kart World (2025). It also worked on Namco Bandai’s Project X Zone games for the 3DS.

Nintendo bought out the remaining shareholders over the years that followed, and Monolith Soft’s company profile now lists Nintendo as its sole owner, with Sugiura still its representative director and Takahashi, a co-founder, one of its directors.

Sources

  • Monolith Soft, company profile and games list, monolithsoft.co.jp (web, primary): incorporation on 1 October 1999; Sugiura’s, Takahashi’s and Honne’s careers and roles in the founding; offices in Tokyo, Osaki and Kyoto; Nintendo’s 100% ownership; titles developed and titles partly developed under contract, with years. https://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/company/ and https://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/games/
  • Edge issue 100, August 2001, p. 32: Xenosaga preview (Monolith’s debut title; the team and Namco).
  • IGN Unplugged issue 4, July 2001, pp. 39–40: Xenosaga preview (the staff leaving Square, “under the wing of Namco”, Project X and the spring 2001 Tokyo Game Show).
  • Edge issue 123, May 2003, p. 77: Xenosaga Episode I review (publisher Namco, developer Monolith; US release; seven out of ten).
  • Edge issue 144, January 2005, p. 93: Baten Kaitos review (the card battles).
  • Edge issue 148, April 2005, p. 33: Namco x Capcom preview (“Namco subsidiary Monolith”; designing attacks for its characters); p. 86: Xenosaga Episode II review (“out now (US)”; “cut-scenes are the new king”; the episodic template).
  • Hyper issue 144, October 2005, pp. 88–90: the Xeno games (the team splitting from Square; Xenosaga retelling the story; the Nietzsche titles).
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 198, December 2005, p. 125: Xenosaga Episode III, the “third and final installment” of a planned six.
  • Retro Gamer issue 104, 2012, p. 71: Baten Kaitos (developers tri-Crescendo and Monolith Soft, 2003).
  • Edge issue 183, Christmas 2007, p. 38: Disaster: Day of Crisis preview (Monolith a Nintendo subsidiary since May 2007).
  • Edge issue 215, June 2010, p. 40: Xenoblade preview (Japanese release on 10 June; “the first major project to result from the acquisition of Monolith Soft in 2007”; the two giants).
  • Edge issue 232, October 2011, pp. 116–118: Xenoblade Chronicles review (the “dead end” of cut-scenes; “a return to creative form”; Xenosaga ended after three of six episodes).
  • Edge issue 256, August 2013, p. 56: X for the Wii U (“Monolith founder and Xenoblade director Tetsuya Takahashi”; transforming mechs in an open world).
  • Edge issue 236, January 2012, p. 98: Xenoblade Chronicles among the year’s best, not yet released in North America.
  • Wireframe issue 40, 2020, p. 89: Monolith Soft’s credit on Splatoon 2.
  • “Nintendo Acquires Stake in Monolith Soft”, Gamasutra, 27 April 2007 (web, secondary): 80% of Bandai Namco’s 96% stake; Bandai Namco to keep 16%. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/nintendo-acquires-stake-in-monolith-soft
  • Jenni Lada, “Monolith Soft Was Founded to Try and Make Xenogears 2 Happen”, Siliconera, 28 May 2020 (web, secondary), reporting Hirohide Sugiura’s interview in Famitsu, June 2020: the founders, Namco’s founder Masaya Nakamura, and the reason for the company. https://www.siliconera.com/monolith-soft-was-founded-to-try-and-make-xenogears-2-happen/

See also

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