Monolith Soft opens Iidabashi studio
Operation began this month, joining developer's Tokyo headquarters and Kyoto studio
Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft has opened a new studio in the Iidabashi neighborhood of Tokyo. Operation began this month, though it is unknown as of yet what the studio will be working on.
This news comes from a tweet by Yasuyuki Honne (as reported by Nintendo Everything), an artist at Monolith Soft who served as art director on both Baten Kaitos games, along with other roles across other Monolith games such as Xenoblade Chronicles.
Monolith Soft has two other existing studios. The main Tokyo studio primarily develops Monolith's IPs, and a Kyoto studio that opened in 2011 to work more closely with Nintendo after it acquired the developer in 2007. The latter still primarily works with Nintendo, most recently on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon 2. This new Iidabashi studio's work is an enigma for now, with no announced Monolith Soft projects beyond upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles 2 DLC on the horizon.
In August of last year, Gematsu reported the company was hiring designers, programmers, and support for "an ambitious project different from the brand image of Monolith Soft," but it is unknown if that is related to the new studio.