History Creator / MonolithSoft

Towards the beginning of UsefulNotes/{{The Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}, the newly-merged Namco Bandai sold 80% of its share of Monolith to Creator/{{Nintendo}}, making the company its subsidiary; they would later sell the rest, making Monolith Soft a first-party developer for the gaming giant. Their most noted projects under Nintendo are ''Xenoblade'' (or ''Xenoblade Chronicles'' outside Japan) games: {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''Xenogears'' and ''Xenosaga'' which have arguably become the most popular and successful of the ''Xeno'' series. They have also lent developmental assistance to some of Nintendo's other first-party games such as ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' and ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'', particularly its ''Octo Expansion''.

They should not be confused with the American-based game developer Creator/MonolithProductions.

!Games under Namco/Namco-Bandai

* ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' (co-developed with Namco Bandai subsidiary Banpresto)

* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''

Shortly after the creation of ''Chrono Cross'', Takahashi and many of his team members left Square and went to [[Creator/BandaiNamcoEntertainment Namco]], the company who would provide them the start-up capital needed to form their own company. Thus, Monolith Soft was born. For the entirety of UsefulNotes/TheSixthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames, Monolith Soft was a subsidiary of Namco. Due to his departure from Square, Takahashi could not acquire the rights to ''Xenogears''. Instead, he decided to create SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', which he was able to develop into a proper series, but failed to realize his complete vision before it suffered enormous amounts of problems in production and was canceled after Episode 3. Monolith Soft was also able to produce the CultClassic UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube [=RPG=] ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''.

They're well known for a story Takahashi refers to as something called "Perfect Works", that never was able to be told the way Takahashi wanted it to be. Xenogears and Xenosaga were intended to be parts of it, but the games being canceled and suffering such massive production issues forced him to start over and reboot the whole thing. The most insane part of this is that when Takahashi had seemingly gave up on it and went on to other things,
Creator/SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game he was working on completely unrelated to Perfect Works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident. Experience and and failures influenced Takahashi's approach to game design, where he now designs his stories around game mechanics and expands from there. This time he's claimed to be taking a WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants approach to Perfect Works that involves using more focused and self-contained stories than his failed attempts that are mostly unrelated to each other to create pieces of the new version of the PW plotline, which so far has had much more commercial success and created something wildly different from his original script.

They have a very noticeable CreatorThumbprint that shows up in nearly every game, large parts of which even show up in games they're only helping with like the Zelda series or even Splatoon. AfterTheEnd settings with a long dead super advanced civilization, heavy Gnostic and Christian references with usually at least one character undergoing a CrisisOfFaith, HumongousMecha, [[KillerRabbit cute mascots that can sometimes be comically powerful]], and their most famous habit of [[PersonOfMassDestruction creating super weapons in the form of a young woman]] in either RobotGirl or ArtificialHuman varieties all wrapped up in a KudzuPlot that doesn't make much sense until the [[TheEndingChangesEverything last 30 minutes of the story]] are all Tropes associated heavily with Monolith Soft.

Most of the people who would eventually form the company were just a nameless studio under [[Creator/SquareEnix Square Co.]], producing two well-received [=RPGs=] for the [[UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation}} Sony PlayStation]]: ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' and ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''. Takahashi and his team wished to make ''Xenogears'' a full fledged series, but they were unable to as Square's [[ExecutiveMeddling higher-ups wanted to focus their resources]] on their [[RunningGag Earth-shatteringly]] [[CashCowFranchise popular]] ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' franchise.

Most of the people that would eventually form the company were just a nameless studio under [[Creator/SquareEnix Square Co.]], producing two well-received [=RPGs=] for the [[UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation}} Sony PlayStation]]: ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' and ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''. Takahashi and his team wished to make ''Xenogears'' a full fledged series, but they were unable to as Square's [[ExecutiveMeddling higher-ups wanted to focus their resources]] on their [[RunningGag Earth-shatteringly]] [[CashCowFranchise popular]] ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' franchise.

Creator/SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game he was working on completely unrelated to Perfect Works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident. Experience and and failures influenced Takahashi's approach to game design, where he now designs his stories around game mechanics and expands from there. This time he's claimed to be taking a WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants approach to Perfect Works that involves using tiny-scale stories with a more personal focus(for a Xeno-game anyway) that are mostly unrelated to each other to create pieces of the new version of the PW plotline, which so far has had much more commercial success and created something wildly different from his original script.

Creator/SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game he was working on completely unrelated to Perfect Works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident. Experience and and failures influenced Takahashi's approach to game design, where he now designs his stories around game mechanics and expands from there. This time he's claimed to be taking a WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants approach to Perfect Works, which so far has had much more commercial success and created something wildly different from his original script.

They have a very noticeable CreatorThumbprint that shows up in nearly every game, large parts of which even show up in games they're only helping with like the Zelda series or even Splatoon. AfterTheEnd settings with a long dead super advanced civilization, heavy Gnostic and Christian references with usually at least one character undergoing a CrisisOfFaith, HumongousMecha, cute mascots that can sometimes be comically powerful, and their most famous habit of creating super weapons in the form of a young woman in either RobotGirl or ArtificialHuman varieties all wrapped up in a KudzuPlot that doesn't make much sense until the last 30 minutes of the story are all Tropes associated heavily with Monolith Soft.

They have a very noticeable CreatorThumbprint that shows up in nearly every game, large parts of which even show up in games they're only helping with like the Zelda series or even Splatoon. AfterTheEnd settings with a long dead super advanced civilization, heavy Gnostic and Christian references with usually at least one character undergoing a CrisisOfFaith, HumongousMecha, cute mascots that can sometimes be comically powerful, and their most famous habit of super weapons in the form of a young woman in either RobotGirl or ArtificialHuman varieties all wrapped up in a KudzuPlot that doesn't make much sense until the last 30 minutes of the story are all Tropes associated heavily with Monolith Soft.

They have a very noticeable CreatorThumbprint that shows up in nearly every game, large parts of which even show up in games they're only helping with like the Zelda series or even Splatoon. AfterTheEnd settings with a long dead super advanced civilization, heavy Gnostic and Christian references with usually at least one character undergoing a CrisisOfFaith, HumongousMecha, super weapons in the form of a young woman in either RobotGirl or ArtificialHuman varieties, and cute mascots that can sometimes be comically powerful, all wrapped up in a KudzuPlot that doesn't make much sense until the last 30 minutes of the story are all Tropes associated heavily with Monolith Soft.

They have a very noticeable CreatorThumbprint that shows up in nearly every game, large parts of which even show up in games they're only helping with like the Zelda series or even Splatoon. AfterTheEnd settings with a long dead super advanced civilization, heavy Gnostic and Christian references with usually at least one character undergoing a CrisisOfFaith, HumongousMecha, super weapons in the form of a young woman in either RobotGirl or ArtificalHuman varieties, and cute mascots that can sometimes be comically powerful, all wrapped up in a KudzuPlot that doesn't make much sense until the last 30 minutes of the story are all Tropes associated heavily with Monolith Soft.

Creator/SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game he was working on completely unrelated to Perfect Works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident.

Creator/SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game completely unrelated to perfect works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident.

They're well known for a story Takahashi refers to as something called "Perfect Works", that never was able to be told the way Takahashi wanted it to be. Xenogears and Xenosaga were intended to be parts of it, but the games being canceled and suffering such massive production issues forced him to start over and reboot the whole thing. The most insane part of this is that when Takahashi had seemingly gave up on it and went on to other things, the late Creator/SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game completely unrelated to perfect works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident.

They're well known for a story Takahashi refers to as something called "Perfect Works", that never was able to be told the way Takahashi wanted it to be. Xenogears and Xenosaga were intended to be parts of it, but the games being canceled and suffering such massive production issues forced him to start over and reboot the whole thing. The most insane part of this is that when Takahashi had seemingly gave up on it and went on to other things, SatoruIwata convinced him to attach the Xeno title to a game completely unrelated to perfect works to honor his past struggles. This game called Monado: Beginning of the world, became Xenoblade. This, combined with Nintendo contributing with a minor miracle of their own by delaying Xenoblade to let Takahashi see it through to the end, allowed him to release the game mostly as he intended. Being an absolute success, Takahashi was allowed to make sequels that retroactively added Gears and Saga elements thus Xenoblade managed to revive the Perfect Works story line completely by accident.

They're well known for a story Takahashi refers to as something called "Perfect Works", that never was able to be told the way Takahashi wanted it to be. Xenogears and Xenosaga were intended to be parts of it, but the games being canceled and suffering such massive production issues forced him to start over and reboot the whole thing. Xenoblade is assumed to be his new reboot of this, and despite issues in production once more has gone much smoother.

[[/index]]

Shortly after the creation of ''Chrono Cross'', Takahashi and many of his team members left Square and went to [[Creator/BandaiNamcoEntertainment Namco]], the company who would provide them the start-up capital needed to form their own company. Thus, Monolith Soft was born. For the entirety of UsefulNotes/TheSixthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames, Monolith Soft was a subsidiary of Namco. Due to his departure from Square, Takahashi could not acquire the rights to ''Xenogears''. Instead, he decided to create SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', which he was able to develop into a proper series. Monolith Soft was also able to produce the CultClassic UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube [=RPG=] ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''.

* ''VideoGame/EndlessFrontier: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga'' (co-developed with Namco Bandai subsidiary Banpresto)

Towards the beginning of UsefulNotes/{{The Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}, the newly-merged Namco Bandai sold 80% of its share of Monolith to Creator/{{Nintendo}}, making the company its subsidiary; they would later sell the rest, making Monolith Soft a first-party developer for the gaming giant. Their most noted projects under Nintendo are ''Xenoblade'' (or ''Xenoblade Chronicles'' outside Japan) games: {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''Xenogears'' and ''Xenosaga'' which have arguably become the most popular and successful of the ''Xeno'' series. They have also lent developmental assistance to some of Nintendo's other first-party games such as ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' and ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'', particularly its ''Octo Expansion''.

* ''VideoGame/EndlessFrontier'' (co-developed with Namco Bandai subsidiary Banpresto)

Towards the beginning of UsefulNotes/{{The Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}, the newly-merged Namco Bandai sold 80% of its share of Monolith to Creator/{{Nintendo}}, making the company its subsidiary; they would later sell the rest, making Monolith Soft a first-party developer for the gaming giant. Their most noted projects under Nintendo are ''Xenoblade'' (or ''Xenoblade Chronicles'' outside Japan) games: {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''Xenogears'' and ''Xenosaga'' which have arguably become the most popular and successful of the ''Xeno'' series. They have also lent developmental assistance to some of Nintendo's other first-party games such as ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''.

Towards the beginning of the SeventhGeneration, the newly-merged Namco Bandai sold 80% of its share of Monolith to Creator/{{Nintendo}}, making the company its subsidiary; they would later sell the rest, making Monolith Soft a first-party developer for the gaming giant. Their most noted projects under Nintendo are ''Xenoblade'' (or ''Xenoblade Chronicles'' outside Japan) games: {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''Xenogears'' and ''Xenosaga'' which have arguably become the most popular and successful of the ''Xeno'' series. They have also lent developmental assistance to some of Nintendo's other first-party games such as ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''.

Shortly after the creation of ''Chrono Cross'', Takahashi and many of his team members left Square and went to [[Creator/BandaiNamcoEntertainment Namco]], the company who would provide them the start-up capital needed to form their own company. Thus, Monolith Soft was born. For the entirety of the SixthGeneration, Monolith Soft was a subsidiary of Namco. Due to his departure from Square, Takahashi could not acquire the rights to ''Xenogears''. Instead, he decided to create SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', which he was able to develop into a proper series. Monolith Soft was also able to produce the CultClassic UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube [=RPG=] ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}''

Shortly after the creation of ''Chrono Cross'', Takahashi and many of his team members left Square and went to [[Creator/NamcoBandai Namco]], the company who would provide them the start-up capital needed to form their own company. Thus, Monolith Soft was born. For the entirety of the SixthGeneration, Monolith Soft was a subsidiary of Namco. Due to his departure from Square, Takahashi could not acquire the rights to ''Xenogears''. Instead, he decided to create SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', which he was able to develop into a proper series. Monolith Soft was also able to produce the CultClassic UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube [=RPG=] ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''.

Towards the beginning of the SeventhGeneration, the newly-merged Namco Bandai sold 80% of its share of Monolith to Creator/{{Nintendo}}, making the company its subsidiary; they would later sell the rest, making Monolith Soft a first-party developer for the gaming giant. Their most noted project under Nintendo is yet another series of {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''Xenogears'' and ''Xenosaga'' named ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' (''Xenoblade Chronicles'' outside of Japan), which has arguably become the most popular and successful of the ''Xeno'' series. They have also lent developmental assistance to some of Nintendo's other first-party games such as ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}} (Chronicles)''
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX''
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2''