Exactly, there is a reason why Xenoblade 2 was somewhat incomplete with buggy, low resolution and choppy fps. Because all the people of the main team were moved to BTW. Now, if Nintendo didn't use their support, i wonder if EPD could make open world BOTW alone since the only people who could make good open world with great design in big scale while didn't feel empty at that moment are Monolith. Compare both XCX and BOTW open world side by side, almost identical

After reviewing what everybody's said in this thread, I think I'm going to hope that the XCX team is doing the bulk of the work, that they are designing the next Zelda's map, and that this job posting is for the Kyoto team, who are supporting/polishing the work XCX team is doing.

I am also hoping that master map design is a latter segment of the development cycle - that Nintendo is fully past concept development, storywriting, engine development, asset creation, and maybe even dungeon design. Nothing really exists to tell me that they're at that point except that there's a reasonable bit of logic to say that map design could follow all that work - I just hope we're not seeing this job posting because we're at an early stage, because that would suck. If they've completed all/most of what I said above, it's plausible we could see the game as early as next year. If they're still at the beginning of the dev cycle with the game, as a whole, then we're almost certainly not seeing it until '22.

How about no? Now we need Xenoblade X Switch Edition and Xenoblade X2, take a team from a new studio in Tokyo and Kyoto studio as well. Monolith as of now have 4 studios total. Let the main team do their own project

Or we let the team that's proven itself work on the project that is worth the most. Why would Nintendo, or any Zelda fan, want a new, unproven team to do such important work on such a large project?

Xenoblade 2 is a newer release than BotW, anyways, so it's somewhat silly to hope for resources to be diverted for that ahead of Zelda.  More likely is that Nintendo will have them design the map for Zelda, get it polished, then proceed to XCX2, and this will align with a release schedule that not only keeps the greatest number of fans happy, but also stresses their teams the least.

And it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to put the main team on a Switch port of XCX. That's completely absurd.

XCX took 5 years to make, work on Zelda now will make the wait even longer. How many? 8,9 or even 10 years? XC2 was made by B team, not A team, the result: a buggy game with choppy fps, total opposite with XCX resolution/fps. "And it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to put the main team on a Switch port of XCX. That's completely absurd." If is is just the same game then not necessary, but if it get more story/characters add-on as well as more enhanced gameplay features then nope, it need the main team. There is a reason why XCX is the largest Nintendo game but had almost no loading, free bug and 30fps locked with no drop. Not to mention, now Monolith have two more studios with ~200 people in total for helping with Zelda games/other Nintendo games. Were all Wii U enhanced ports made by a new, unproven team of Nintendo? Metroid Prime on GameCube was made by an unknow/unproven team as well, the result? We got the trilogy of the series and everyone is waiting for the 4th installment

Breath of the Wild had a dev team of 300, not 5000. Over 100 of those were from Monolithsoft, and half the design staff was from Monolithsoft.

300 staffers from EPD plus Monolith's people not 300 people only, the Zelda team size is 300 people from with in EPD, EPD itself has 5000 people which is what I'm pointing out 60% of Monolith is a drop in the ocean in comparison as the Zelda team alone are bigger than them.

Where are you getting this 5000 people at EPD number from? NCL employs only 5869 total; around 2000 of that number work in Nintendo's core offices, which would include EPD. I am also unsure how this number is relevant?

I don't know what you mean by "Zelda team" as though it is something that doesn't include the Monolithsoft employees.
Breath of the Wild's team numbered 357 devs (including indirect dev assets: tools department, audio team, motion capture, pipeline, etc...), this is more than double the size of the Skyward Sword team which numbered 163. Both sets of numbers include Monolithsoft staff. As I stated earlier, of the 24 people on the design team, 12 of them (or 50%) are from Monolithsoft. I don't see how that equates to a "drop in the ocean." They were a significant force on the Breath of the Wild dev team.

The number is relevant as people are saying around 60% of Monolith when it's barely nothing compared to the total of people Nintendo have under them the Zelda team alone are bigger than Monolith having double checked the 5000 plus includes EPD although the statistics number posted by Nintendo is different to what you say here, also looking at the 300 figure you cited nowhere does it cite that Monolith were included in that figure as Aonuma said the team had 300 people Monolith maybe the extra 60 or so people as Monoliths' 200 employee figure now is after a recruitment drive 2 years after BOTW release, they were around 120 people when BOTW started and finished. During SS' development Monolith were even smaller and were around 90 or so people.

Those 12 only focused on open world design the rest had to do everything else that goes with it yeah they helped with a key part of the game but then the was still so much more to do hence why even though Xenoblade X and BOTW's map have similar designs the applications are very different, much like Intelligent Systems now 1-up are utilized to handle programming Monolith are utilized for map design with in Nintendo it doesn't however mean they can do a full on Zelda on their own because 60% of their team helped develop the map assets.

Double checked what source?

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/en/outline/index.html

Nintendo's own website gives a figure of 5869 employees globally, including 2,271 employees at Nintendo Co. LTD 

Even if the team was 300 + 57 from Monolithsoft (16% of the total, with 50% of the design staff) is NOT a "drop in the ocean" as you say. Especially when Monolithsoft's portion, the world map, is the starring attraction of the game.