Last year while speaking with Xenoblade Chronicles X’s directors Tetsuya Takahashi and Genki Yokota we learned that the team at Monolith was interested in taking its expertise with open world games and helping develop the next Zelda. This didn’t seem too unreasonable since the team at Monolith had previously worked on Skyward Sword as well. This year we learned that Monolith would continue this tradition by helping shape The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

During an interview at E3, legendary developer Shigeru Miyamoto told us, “Yes they are involved in this Zelda. People from Tokyo and Kyoto are working together on this. There is a team of over 100 [from Monolith] helping work on this project, and their work has really been helpful.”

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/06/17/monolith-is-helping-work-on-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild.aspx

That explains a lot, including the huge open world.

I think it shows. When the trailer started it looked like Xenoblad Chronicles X.

Will be interesting to see what they contribute to the game!

I thought we already knew this?

In any event, it really shows.

Great to hear. 

Monolith did an excellent job of making the open worlds of Xenoblade and its sequel feel interesting and alive, that expertise should be invaluable in Breath of the Wild. Plus the Zelda team can use all the help they can get; with all due respect they're kind of bad at getting things done on time.

I swear when I saw the game I though monolithsoft must be somewhere behind this, and they are! Glad, they are great making huge landscapes in games.

They've never been confirmed to be working on the game til now. They've only said that they wouldn't mind helping.

Oh ok, thanks! I think it's a match made in heaven

Yeah, I thought a while back Monolith Soft said they'd like to work on the new Zelda. And I guess it came to pass! I really see their graphical prowess in the rock formations. This just makes me even more excited to play. So staff is like 200+ people now? 100+ were confirmed from Nintendo EAD and now an additional 100...Game of the Year 2017 incoming.