Xenoblade Chronicles developer Monolith Soft has undoubtedly created some of the greatest JRPGs of all time, but the company is still striving to reach greater heights.
That's according to a newly translated interview found in the developer's 2024 Company Brochure (translated and reported by Nintendo Everything, and verified by 12DOVE using machine translation), in which representative director Hirohide Sugiura reflects on the company's past 25 years and looks ahead into the future. Something that's reiterated throughout is the fact that Monolith Soft aspires for even greater success, as it's not yet completely satisfied with what it's already achieved.
"I do not believe we've had enough of the satisfaction that comes from success and achievement," Sugiura says. "This is definitely something Monolith Soft will pursue for as long as it exists, and perhaps may never be obtainable."
Furthermore, Sugiura says that "as long as Monolith Soft exists, our drive to never be satisfied with the status quo and aim for higher quality will never change." He certainly wants it to keep existing, too, as he hopes it "can keep going for 100, 200, or even 500 years." At this point, I'm going to need a time traveler to tell me what happens in Xenoblade 4 through 50.
While Monolith Soft is arguably best known for developing the Xenosaga series, as well as the aforementioned excellent Xenoblade Chronicles games, its work isn't limited to these, as it's also assisted in developing a number of other major releases for Nintendo. These include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing: New Leaf and New Horizons, and all three Splatoon games. Needless to say, the developer has played a significant role in bolstering the Nintendo Switch's strong first-party game library across a variety of different genres.
One thing that's continually been impressive about Monolith Soft's Nintendo Switch Xenoblade games is just how well they run and look. All three games (as well as the DLCs for 2 and 3) have enormous open worlds with detailed and varied biomes, which look all fantastic, and rarely experience performance issues even when hectic real-time battles are unfolding on the screen. While the studio hasn't confirmed that any new installments are in development at the time of writing, it's very exciting to imagine what it might be able to do with newer hardware. Speaking of which, Nintendo has confirmed that it'll be revealing its Switch successor at some point this fiscal year, so it should get an announcement sometime before March 2025.
For more games like Xenoblade Chronicles, be sure to check out our roundup of the 25 best RPGs you can play right now.
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