Monolith Soft is well known for its technical capabilities in game development, especially when it comes to making large open-world games with limited hardware. The studio has previously worked on a number of games, from the Xenoblade Chronicles series of RPGs, to Nintendo’s flagship titles like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. In a new interview on the studio’s official website, Nintendo’s general manager for The Legend of Zelda series, Daiki Iwamoto, spoke with Monolith Soft’s animator and director Yasuhiro Fujita about the two companies working together.
While the duo discussed several projects throughout the interview, one of the most interesting details came from Iwamoto talking about wanting to work with Monolith Soft again in another game in the Zelda series. He praised the studio as being a “strong partner” when it comes to making games in the Zelda franchise, and went on to say that they should “use the know-how we’ve developed by working together” to make a new unique title in the series.
“Monolith Soft is a strong partner when it comes to developing Zelda games from scratch,” said Iwamoto. “And more and more I would like to see them taking on a central role in production. Going forward, let’s use the know-how we’ve developed by working together, and the strength of the whole Monolith Soft team, to create a unique title in the series together.”
While this by no means serves as definitive confirmation that the next mainline entry in The Legend of Zelda franchise will be developed by Monolith Soft, Nintendo and the developer are quite likely already working on something new for the series in the background.
Elsewhere in the interview, Fujita also discussed the role Monolith Soft had played in the development of Zelda games, and how it has evolved since its work on Skyward Sword.
“Monolith Soft now has a larger number of developers, and the way we’re involved has changed,” said Fujita. “With Skyward Sword, the main relationship was that Monolith Soft would create the data in accordance with the game design and specifications laid out by Nintendo, but with Breath of the Wild, we’re more likely to ‘think and create together.’”
While the studio had been working with Nintendo for quite some time with the latter owning 96 percent of the studio as of 2011, Nintendo became a 100 percent owner of Monolith Soft back in December 2024. While this didn’t really change much since Nintendo was already the majority stakeholder in the studio, Monolith Soft now being owned 100 percent by the company likely means that it has more access to the internal infrastructure and support system that had already been set up.
In June, Monolith Soft had revealed that it wasn’t just working on Xenoblade Chronicles and The Legend of Zelda games. It had also provided support in developing Nintendo Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World. While details were sparse, the studio confirmed that Nintendo contracted it to work on the kart racer’s open world and character designs.
