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Monolith Soft’s co-founder and president Tetsuya Takahashi recently spoke with GameSpot about multiple topics regarding the upcoming Switch title Xenoblade Chronicles 2, on which he is the executive director, as well as broader subjects such as game design.In particular, Takahashi was asked if he would ever consider working on a smaller project in which he had a greater influence. Additionally, the executive director was also asked if there were any other genres of videogames that he would like to work on.
First off, when asked if he would ever be interested in working on smaller projects, Takahashi responded with the following:
“If it was just a simple yes or no question, I would have to say yes, I would love to do something like that. But Monolith in and of itself has grown to be a big company, so we need big projects to sustain that company, for one. At the same time, if for example the next generation of developers and staff that could really handle a big game on their own [arrives]–if that comes up–then I’m kind of free to do whatever I want. When that time comes, I would love to work on maybe smaller projects.”
Next, Takahashi was asked if he would like to create any games in genres other than RPGs:
“Actually, my favorite type of games are first-person shooters. Obviously, I like action games and strategy games. I like RPGs as well, but what happens is when I get involved in creating a game, it makes it hard to enjoy that game. For example, right now it’s very hard for me to enjoy RPGs because my perspective becomes that of a creator and not a user, in that I would always think, “Well, why is it this way? They could have done this, or this could have been done that way to improve.” It’s hard to get back into the user perspective. Although I’m interested in it, if I were to make different genres, then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy those.”
Takahashi also shared his thoughts on video games becoming such a huge business, and whether it presents unique challenges that sometimes makes him nostalgic for when times were simpler:
“I think the current status of the Japanese gaming industry is exactly that, where a lot of developers and publishers are kind of exhausted from creating major triple-A titles. There’s a lot of companies that are creating smaller-scale games like on smart devices. I feel like these kinds of games are kind of reminiscent of older games that were a lot simpler. Although I don’t think it’s bad, I don’t personally like it. I think a lot of publishers and developers have this kind of vision where–if you’ve seen the movie Brain Storm–you kind of put this equipment on, and you can actually go into the world itself. It’s almost like Matrix basically where you can really immerse yourself in the world and live in that world. I feel like myself included, that might be kind of like the ultimate form of interactive entertainment. With that said, the industry is right now at a point where it’s really not suitable to create big titles; however, I do have that vision that that’s the ultimate place, and I want to keep going. That’s why I create big games, and I would like to keep going until I can’t anymore.”
You can check out the rest of the interview with Xenoblade Chornicle 2’s executive director Takahashi here.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is set to release this year for the Nintendo Switch.
