Monolith Soft on Xenoblade Chronicles X, sharing dev insight and open to helping other Nintendo teams
Nintendo interviews haven’t stopped pouring in from E3 2015. The latest one comes from Game Informer, who chatted with Xenoblade Chronicles X director Tetsuya Takahashi and Nintendo’s Genki Yokota.
Topics include:
– Why Los Angeles was chosen as the main city for Xenoblade Chronicles X (New York was considered)
– HD development
– Working on first-party Nintendo games and being open to helping out with Zelda Wii U
It’s a pretty massive interview, so we’ve only posted a few excerpts below. You can read the full discussion here.
On why X is part of the Xenoblade line…
Tetsuya Takahashi: So as it turns out, the idea of it being part of “Xeno” was always there. I have to clarify a little bit because not in the sense that it’s a sequel to the previous game but rather it is a new series that is still “Xeno”. That’s how I was thinking of it.
On whether X has the same level of connection to Xenoblade Chronicles as something like Xenogears and Xenosaga…
Takahashi: It’s maybe even a little more loosely connected than that, but yes there are a few links that you might be able to pick up on.
On finding inspiration from previous work…
Takahashi: So I do have the opportunity once in a while to play some games that were developed in North America or Europe. I guess it’s maybe not the best way to say that “I’m inspired by them”, as I “take the time to inspect them”. [Laughs]
On why Los Angeles was chosen as X’s main city…
Takahashi: [Laughs] Actually, much of the reason is because I do like Los Angels. There was even a period in development where we thought about maybe using New York as the model for this future city. Then we realized that it was going to be very difficult and costly in development-terms to create all of those tall buildings.
On multiplayer…
Takahashi: I feel that, although I really like MMOs, I think that’s a completely different kind of beast in terms of developing one of those. So that’s not something we’re really thinking about at the moment. We still are always thinking about multiplayer for future projects, because we feel like having multiplayer in a really big world tends to work out really well.
On Monolith Soft’s relationship with Nintendo and assisting with other first-party games…
Takahashi: There’s both kind of work that we do. Whenever we’re working on one of our own titles like Xenoblade Chronicles X, we’ll have weekly development meetings with Nintendo where we discuss our progress with the game. Whenever we’re not busy with our own projects, we have the opportunity to help out with some of the projects that are being developed at Nintendo. A recent example of this is Splatoon.
On HD development…
Yokota: So when we were first talking to Monolith about the technology, we spent about six months discussing how we were going to pull off creating a game that’s going to be in HD and that’s going to be an open world. We knew this was a really monumental task, but through the good cooperation with them we were able to succeed in finally making it.
On tips for the Zelda Wii U team…
Yokota: So as it turns out, in the development of this game we had a lot of opportunities to prepare reports and feedback on the technology and the different kinds of problems that we encountered. When we’re able to share those documents internally, they’re going to go to all the other teams so they’ll be able to draw from them and I hope that those guys working on that game will be able to benefit as well.
On supporting the Zelda Wii U team…
Takahashi: I mean I suppose it’s possible, but we haven’t heard anything. I would want to say that Monolith Soft is always available and we would love to help anytime people ask us.
