Monolith Soft Looking for Huge Expansion

[N-Magic]

Before Nintendo’s acquisition of Monolith Soft, the company tended to work with smaller teams of freelance developers. But now, it seems the Xenoblade Chronicles developer is eager to expand. Since beginning development for their top-secret Wii U project, Monolith has been hiring talented programmers, managers, planners, designers, and more to help them transition smoothly into a triple-A development studio. Just what does it take to be a part of their team? President Tetsuya Takahashi gives us some insight into how they decide who gets the honors and who does not.

“It’s quite common for a company to reject someone who only knows about games. We all have our preferences, but for us, I’d like to say that it’s the contrary. We’d most likely reject someone who doesn’t know his games. The reason being, we’d like to have someone who is as passionate about making games as we are. Of course it would be troublesome if gaming is the only thing one were to know about, but it would be even more troublesome if they didn’t know anything about it at all. We’re looking for someone who can enjoy making the game he made with his company.” —Tetsuya Takahashi
It appears that Monolith is currently seeking out planners most actively. Being a mostly SD company, they need people with experience in mapping out huge, high-definition worlds in an imaginative way. Koh Kojima, a current in-house planner, notes that in the past, they would imagine vast, complex worlds and have to file them down to something a console could manage. Now, in the age of ultrafast processing and 1080p graphics, their visions can now be fully realized, and they need to adapt to the new possibilities.

“A younger person would be nice. It’s okay if one doesn’t have any experience developing games, as long as they can come up with something interesting. Experience can easily come along the way, but creativity is different.” He adds: “Another big thing is being a skilled communicator. It’s an important skill to be able to express your ideas in a better manner.” —Koh Kojima, a current in-house planner