A follow-up to Xenoblade Chronicles is in development on Wii U at Monolith Soft, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced today during a Nintendo Direct presentation.

The development team is led by studio head Tetsuya Takahashi, who also served as game director on Xenoblade Chronicles. Character design is being done by Kunihiko Tanaka, who performed the same duties for Xenogears and Xenosaga Episode 1. Hiroyuki Sawano, a composer for Japanese film, TV and anime, is writing the score.

Check out the debut teaser trailer, which includes gameplay footage, above. Nintendo is referring to the title simply as "a new game from Monolith Soft," but it bears a strong resemblance to Xenoblade Chronicles.

Xenoblade Chronicles launched on Wii in 2010 in Japan, and last year in North America.