The 4 June 2020 of Weekly Famitsu features an interview with Monolith Soft founder and president Sugiura Hirohide, in which he discusses the roots of the company, including the scrapped plans for Xenogears 2.
When asked about his motive for going independent, he says that when he was still with Square, though he was attached to a different title, he still played Xenogears and fell in love with it. But though they originally had plans for Xenogears 2, they were put in a situation where they could not go through with it due to Square at the time putting massive investments into film business.
Sugiura thus founded Monolith Soft in 1999 as a way to make Xenogears 2 happen in some way. Takahashi Tetsuya and other staff like Honne Yasuyuki joined, and Namco founder Nakamura Masaya helped them in establishing the company.
In the end, the first game that Monolith Soft worked on was Xenosaga Episode I, but Sugiura says that because they ran into problems with managing income and expenditure with Episode I, they had to make “difficult decisions” with Episode II.
In regards to Xenoblade Chronicles, Sugiura describes it as a “prototype” for the achievement of their goal, that only has a small part of Takahashi’s universe, time and world in it, that could be called part of his life’s work.
See more: Xenoblade’s Takahashi On Definitive Edition Development, Learning from Failure, and the Future
Monolith Soft’s latest game, also the latest game in the Xeno series, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, releases on 29th May 2020 for the Nintendo Switch
(This article was edited on 5/29 for clarity in regards to the timeline of events)
What would you like to see Monolith Soft do with the Xeno series next? Let us know in the comments below!
Im playing Xenogears for my fifth playthrough. This time im using RetroArch as my PS1 finally kicked the bucket.
Xenogears remastered or Xenogears 2 would be incredible. Lots of love for one of the best battle systems in an incredible RPG.