Monolith Soft, best known for developing the critically-acclaimed Xenoblade Chronicles, opened a new studio in Kyoto, Japan, last year, in order to be closer to their parent company, Nintendo. What exactly have they been up to since then?

After Xenoblade, Monolith Soft went on to develop Project X Zone, a crossover RPG for the Nintendo 3DS, featuring characters from Capcom, Namco Bandai and Sega. They also helped out with certain aspects of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. And finally, in September, Nintendo revealed that they’re working on a brand new Wii U game.

In a series of interviews conducted internally last year, Monolith Soft discussed their projects and aspirations. Regarding their Wii U project, they were rather tight-lipped regarding what to expect, but they did say that it will be a challenging game that will get people together, and that you can expect it to be both very flashy and addicting.

This is going to be their first jump into next gen gaming. Monolith say they thought about it for a while, but and decided that if they were going to jump into the next generation, they’d like to have the perfect team in order to do it the right way. Working alongside Nintendo will be a huge advantage, they feel, as Monolith Soft will have a better understanding of the Wii U’s capabilities, in order to produce top notch titles for the company.

Monolith Soft’s Michihiko Inaba and executive producer, Hirohide Sugiura, had a couple of quotes to share, regarding their upcoming Wii U game.

Inaba: “I’d like to make an HD game that will wow the players. I want to show that Japan can still keep up with the USA when it comes next gen technology. Our goal is to become something like the developers of the Fallout series, Bethesda Softworks.”

Sugiura: “I believe that today’s Japanese gaming industry has lost its touch, and we’d like to do something to change that.”