Xenoblade Chronicles director Tetsuya Takahashi and his studio Monolith Soft have announced that they're recruiting for a brand new RPG, and it sounds like it might be a bit different to what you're used to from the developer.
In a message on the official Monolith Soft website (which is in Japanese; we're using machine translation), Takahashi says he's recruiting staff for Monolith's "first production for the first time in a long time". It's unclear exactly what he means by this, since Xenoblade Chronicles 3 launched just two years ago.
The phrasing might be a quirk of machine translation, or it might mean that Takahashi and Monolith are setting out to create a brand new IP, which would be the studio's first since 2010's Xenoblade Chronicles (if you don't count 2012's Namco x Capcom followup Project X Zone, that is).
Takahashi says that the days of creating large-scale games with smaller teams are over, and that it now needs people with "a wide range of knowledge", as well as "connections that utilize that knowledge".
He goes on to say that each area of an RPG, from its overworld to its characters and battle system, is "closely linked" to the next, and so it's important to have staff members who can work together on these elements rather than separately.
Sadly, details about Monolith Soft's new RPG are somewhat thin on the ground; Takahashi says he can't go into detail regarding what the RPG will look like now, but that he and his studio want "as many customers as possible" to enjoy his games.
He also reiterates that Monolith is, despite his newfound ambitions, "not a rigid organization"; rather, it's still a "relatively rough and sloppy organization", and that's what makes his team "unique".
Whatever we can expect from Monolith Soft's new project, it sounds like it won't be a followup to any of the studio's existing properties, so it might be a good idea to stop holding out hope for that Xenosaga sequel. We'll bring you more on this as soon as we get it.
