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Wyrdness on 04 April 2019
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Jumpin said:
Wyrdness said:

Monoliths employee count during development of SS and BOTW:

https://nintendoeverything.com/a-rough-estimate-of-monolith-softs-staff-count-over-the-years/

During SS they had around 80 people and they were working on XBC at the time so I don't see more than 20 people working on Zelda back then, when BOTW started they had 108 people and were around 120 when it completed so that's around 60 people, 20-60 people compared to the remaining 2,211 people going by your number is a drop in the ocean for Nintendo as Monolith are still one of the smallest teams an example of this is Retro who had more employees than Monolith at their peak but their absence has barely affected Nintendo's performance and they've been replace as the fan favourite studio (who were hyped up by people to be a Naughty Dog) by the latter due to Nintendo pushing the latter more, the same can easily happen to Monolith as well their work is appreciated but doesn't mean they're now the foundations holding it all together don't get carried away.

The star attraction for BOTW isn't the map it's the game's use and application of the map, many games have good open world maps but don't use them as well, Monolith map a good map yes but the Zelda team's application of it is why it stands out among open worlds.

I ask you again:

Monolithsoft numbers from 5-12 years ago are irrelevant. What you were asked to provide was your source you double checked showing the 5000 people who work at EPD?

Why is this number relevant to Breath of the Wild's development?

The 2271 number I sourced has nothing to do with Breath of the Wild's dev team, it is the total number of employees Nintendo lists as working at Nintendo Co LTD. I question your 5000 number considering 5000 is more than double ALL of Nintendo Co LTD's employees. Nintendo Co LTD's size compared to Monolithsoft has no relevance. The proportion of the Breath of the Wild dev team is what is relevant, and 16%, including half of the design staff, is not the "drop in the ocean" you claim it is.

Monolithsoft's assistance on Skyward Sword was in art asset creation. Their involvement on Breath of the Wild was significantly larger (as it includes the design and creation of the map). Their unique touch and influence is clear and profound. Breath of the Wild's overworld design philosophy is significantly closer to Xenoblade Chronicles X than any other game ever published by Nintendo, and perhaps closest to XCX than any other game ever created by anyone. You brought up "use and application of the map" which is also most like XCX compared to any other Nintendo game; and that is due to Monolithsoft's influence and work on Breath of the Wild.

I also never said Monolithsoft was "the foundation holding it together" whatever that means, nor did I bring up anything about Naughty Dog or Retro Studios. You're way too fixated on saying negative things about Monolithsoft rather than actually sticking to the topic.

It's relevant because Nintendo rotate staff across teams so everyone who works in the core offices are potentially future Zelda team members if Monolith aren't involved in the series in future another group of people would simply be used instead. Yeah the map uses their design and approach similar to XCX and? If you removed all the Zelda elements from the map they created for BOTW and applied it to any other good open world map BOTW would still turn out great that's what applications means no doubt Aonuma and his side already had a map design in place for Monolith to create assets for. If the map design was the main attraction and all XCX would have received a similar critical reception as BOTW it didn't as the's a lot more to the latter's appeal than that.

The topic is on Monolith recruiting for a Zelda project and some people are debating on Monolith possibly making a full on project themselves when really they contributed to one key area, it's not being negative as nothing negative has been said about them so get that notion out of here it's pointing out the actual reality of things and is part of the topic even if you don't like it, Retro was used as an example of people getting carried away on a studio in thinking they're having more influence than they actually do.