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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Xenoblade Chronicle series developer Monolith Soft is currently working on the development of an in-house game engine. The company’s COO Tetsuya Takahashi and lead programmer Michihiko Inaba talked about their technological efforts in a recent interview with CGworld.

With the scale of Monolith Soft’s projects growing, and the developer “no longer being able to do things with a small number of people,” as Takashi puts it, the company has newly founded an in-house R&D department. Through it, the developer aims to adapt to the needs of large-scale game development by streamlining development processes and reducing man-hours using new technology.

A big part of these efforts is the development of an in-house game engine. According to Inaba, Monolith Soft’s currently in-development engine is based on the engine they originally created in 2010 for Xenoblade Chronicles. They are currently working on expanding it for use in other titles.

Monolith Soft’s work-in-progress in-house effects engine (via CGworld)

According to Takahashi, despite being difficult to create and maintain, an in-house game engine is a necessity for Monolith Soft. “For the kind of games we are currently developing, we do not have the option of using third-party game engines. In-house engines are easier to customize to meet our needs.”

At the moment, Monolith Soft’s various development teams are working in parallel on different technologies that will be integrated into the in-house engine. Inaba mentions model rendering and effect engines currently being in the works.

Monolith Soft is working on an in-house game engine that builds upon the Xenoblade engine for use in other titles - AUTOMATON WEST

Monolith Soft COO and lead engineer talk about the developer's efforts to introduce new technology, including an expanded Xenoblade engine.

automaton-media.com

 

[Mister Wolf]

Monolith Soft are the tech experts over at Nintendo. Well at least they can use DLSS now instead worrying about improving their own in house upscaler they had in XB3.

 

[Gambit2483]

Their current engine is over 10 years old so yea, This is a good thing. Hopefully the new engine improves their game development even further.

 

[Bernoulli]

Monolith Soft are the tech experts over at Nintendo. Well at least they can use DLSS now instead worrying about improving there own in house upscaler they had in XB3.

What if they use both upscalers on each other to reach 4k 120 fps handheld

 

[KungFucius]

Too busy/lazy to read. Does this just mean Monolith games, or are others at Nintendo possibly going to use it? I'd like to see their output increase. It is good now, but if they had 2 franchises and 2 main dev teams they could be dropping something every 2-3 years.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Too busy/lazy to read. Does this just mean Monolith games, or are others at Nintendo possibly going to use it? I'd like to see their output increase. It is good now, but if they had 2 franchises and 2 main dev teams they could be dropping something every 2-3 years.

I suspect the smaller team is likely working on a remaster of Xenoblade X. Wouldn't surprise me if that's a Switch 2 launch title or within launch year.

 

[Cornbread78]

XB2 & XB3 often ran like a slide show and looked like an oil painting with a Switch in handheld mode. Hopefully, this fixes that, especially for Switch 2

 

[BennyBlanco]

I am more hyped for their next game than anything else in the industry

 

[IAmRei]

I suspect the smaller team is likely working on a remaster of Xenoblade X. Wouldn't surprise me if that's a Switch 2 launch title or within launch year.

I wish so, i wish so T_Tb

 

[Danjin44]

Monolith Soft was always improve their graphical engine, even when it comes to expansion like how they improved engine in Torna compare to base Xenoblade 2.

 

[Sorcerer]

Too busy/lazy to read. Does this just mean Monolith games, or are others at Nintendo possibly going to use it? I'd like to see their output increase. It is good now, but if they had 2 franchises and 2 main dev teams they could be dropping something every 2-3 years.

I would imagine it will be available to anyone at Nintendo who can make use of it. Nintendo is paying the bill for the development I'm sure and it's probably theirs by default.

 

[Robb]

Looking forward to seeing what they’ve been cooking for the next system!

 

[Mr Hyde]

Monolith Soft is gonna come out swinging on Switch 2.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I hear it has a sophisticated waifu breast physics simulation system. And the audio engine supports up to 128 simultaneous voice channels so you can have up to 128 characters all yelling stuff at the same time for some truly epic battles.

 

[RagnarokIV]

They should port AVP2 to modern systems.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

They should port AVP2 to modern systems.

Different Monolith

 

[lestar]

Give it to gamefreak, please

 

[Sgt.Asher]

I'm still amazed they got xenoblade x to run on the wii u.
I wonder if this will be for a unified Nintendo engine, streamline development?

 

[Msamy]

They should switch to unreal engine 5

 

[tkscz]

They should switch to unreal engine 5

Wouldn't be the first Nintendo owned studio to use Unreal. Technically speaking that would be Retro Studios as the Metroid Prime series used Unreal Engine 2, though they had done so much custom work in it, it became it's own engine.

Both Good Feel and Nintendo EPD were using UE4 for Yoshi's Crafted World and Pikmin 4. That said though, it does limit you to what that engine is capable of for the hardware given. These universal engines can only do so much if not given bigger hardware to work with.

I'm positive UE5 runs on Switch 2 but may not be that well. On the other hand, a custom engine made in-house would use the given hardware better. So I'd rather see more in-house Nintendo developers go this route vs using Unreal or Unity.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

The main reason I'll pick up a Switch 2 is for the game these guys will be putting out.

Xeno is in my top 5 game series.

 

[Kataploom]

Always happy to see news about the best studio in the industry
(Now, if they only fix their memory leaks, everything would be perfect)

 

[Hardensoul]

I would imagine it will be available to anyone at Nintendo who can make use of it. Nintendo is paying the bill for the development I'm sure and it's probably theirs by default.

Monolith help with the BotW engine or was it modified of the Xenoblade engine. But for sure Monolith had big input on BotW!

 

[RodriGames40]

I'm still amazed they got xenoblade x to run on the wii u.
I wonder if this will be for a unified Nintendo engine, streamline development?

They already have a main engine datamined, it's called ModuleSystem. It seems to have been significantly upgraded for TOTK and potentially the next Mario or Mario Kart game, so high hopes.

 

[Sorcerer]

Monolith help with the BotW engine or was it modified of the Xenoblade engine. But for sure Monolith had big input on BotW!

Surely, whatever Monolith does is for the good of the company. They are indispensable to Nintendo at this point.

 

[Solarstrike]

 

[Herr Edgy]

Their current engine is over 10 years old so yea, This is a good thing. Hopefully the new engine improves their game development even further.

It's highly unlikely that it's 10 years old, the engine they used for XC3 and the one they used for XC1 (original) will be worlds apart and evolved with needs.

Imo the phrasing of this topic seems to be off in general. Using an in-house engine means they are always developing their engine. Highly unlikely they just scrap the entire thing to make something completely new.
More of a Ship of Theseus situation.

Going by the screenshot though they definitely didn't put much work into UI (and possibly UX), which is not unexpected for a proprietary engine.
I wish they'd move to Unreal though, would be dope to know I had an indirect hand in Xenoblade. One of my favorite series ever.

I think the comment about not being able to use a third party engine is off too. Xenoblade is definitely very impressive but being the tech wizards they are, and Unreal being open source-ish, I'm sure they could make things work.
After all, Unreal is already used for literally all sorts of games. I do understand that there is no real necessity for it though if it works for them, and I think diversity of tech is a good thing overall.

 

[Hardensoul]

Surely, whatever Monolith does is for the good of the company. They are indispensable to Nintendo at this point.

For sure, Monolith Soft was the biggest Nintendo acquisition in past 20yrs. Both companies seem to be happy with each other! I’ve not heard anything bad from any current or former employees. It’s rare to see employees leave either company.

 

[Deerock71]

720p bewbs upscaled to 1080p with 8K jiggle physics!

 

[E-Cat]

Hopefully the losers at Game Freak Inc. will use this

 

[Buggy Loop]

I am more hyped for their next game than anything else in the industry

If they even come close to achieve a world like that with their new tech

 

[Zacfoldor]

Can we get XBC2 artstyle again?

Also, my favorite Nintendo dev and that's really saying something for me. The XBC series....masterful. Legends.

 

[Thief1987]

Will it be effecient enough to run at resolution higher than 360p?

 

[Gambit2483]

It's highly unlikely that it's 10 years old, the engine they used for XC3 and the one they used for XC1 (original) will be worlds apart and evolved with needs.

Imo the phrasing of this topic seems to be off in general. Using an in-house engine means they are always developing their engine. Highly unlikely they just scrap the entire thing to make something completely new.
More of a Ship of Theseus situation.

Going by the screenshot though they definitely didn't put much work into UI (and possibly UX), which is not unexpected for a proprietary engine.
I wish they'd move to Unreal though, would be dope to know I had an indirect hand in Xenoblade. One of my favorite series ever.

I think the comment about not being able to use a third party engine is off too. Xenoblade is definitely very impressive but being the tech wizards they are, and Unreal being open source-ish, I'm sure they could make things work.
After all, Unreal is already used for literally all sorts of games. I do understand that there is no real necessity for it though if it works for them, and I think diversity of tech is a good thing overall.

Yes they have been updating and evolving the engine but it's still limited in what it can ultimately do. Sometimes it is just time to move on and create a new engine.

They know the kind of games they make and using something like Unreal would not work well with their game design and philosophy which they actually state in the article, i.e. “For the kind of games we are currently developing, we do not have the option of using third-party game engines. In-house engines are easier to customize to meet our needs.”

 

[Zannegan]

Here's hoping that the next Pokemon is built entirely in said engine and by someone else. Gamefreak can continue to design the core gameplay (or not) and creature designs (or not), but they shouldn't be let anywhere near actual development after the disaster of Scarlet and Violet.

 

[Fbh]

Nice, they are usually great at making impressive environments on limited hardware, can't wait to see what they do on the next Switch.
That said I think Xenoblade Chronicles X is still their most impressive work,at least visually. Ugly characters aside the world is still pretty damn impressive and I always found it weird that the image quality on their Switch games was so bad considering they didn't look that much better than what they were doing on the weaker WiiU at native 720p

 

[Herr Edgy]

Yes they have been updating and evolving the engine but it's still limited in what it can ultimately do. Sometimes it is just time to move on and create a new engine.

They know the kind of games they make and using something like Unreal would not work well with their game design and philosophy which they actually state in the article, i.e. “For the kind of games we are currently developing, we do not have the option of using third-party game engines. In-house engines are easier to customize to meet our needs.”

Many parts of Unreal Engine 5 are over 10 years old, stemming from UE3 and UE4 days. Trust me on this, as long as an engine had a relatively modular design, you iterate on it, you do not start from scratch. The only reason you start from scratch is because the code is so badly and monothematically written that nothing in there is salvageable, something that is very unlikely.

As for the second part, I can read, the reason I said what I said is because I disagree with what was said in the article.

 

[Project EVE]

Yes Xenoblade would benefit greatly from a more powerful updated engine! Give it to me!

 

[Brigandier]

I can not wait to see what MonolithSoft are cooking.... it's going to be a feast absolutely guaranteed.

 

[fart town usa]

Thread theme.



#TeamTatsu

 

[Fake]

Good news. Fucking tired of everyone using Unreal Engine all the damn time.

 

[Synless]

Nice, they are usually great at making impressive environments on limited hardware, can't wait to see what they do on the next Switch.
That said I think Xenoblade Chronicles X is still their most impressive work,at least visually. Ugly characters aside the world is still pretty damn impressive and I always found it weird that the image quality on their Switch games was so bad considering they didn't look that much better than what they were doing on the weaker WiiU at native 720p

If I can give XCX any credit, it’s that none of the games afterwards released with better environments. They were absolutely packed and beautiful.