Daiki Iwamoto, Nintendo's general manager of The Legend of Zelda franchise, wants to see developer Monolith Soft create a unique game within the franchise from scratch. In the past, Monolith Soft has been key in creating The Legend of Zelda games that deliver breath-taking open-worlds on hardware that really shouldn't be capable of them. They helped bring Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and most recently Tears of the Kingdom to life.
In an interview on Monolith Soft's site, Iwamoto spoke with Monolith Soft director Yasuhiro Fujita about The Legend of Zelda and where the franchise could go. It's clear from Iwamoto's answers in the interview he has high hopes for Monolith Soft. "Monolith Soft now has a system in place that allows them to handle everything from coming up with ideas in the early stages of development to incorporating them into the actual game, so we expected them to be more involved in the creative aspects than ever before," he said.
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The interview spans the great relationship the developer and publisher appear to have, and towards its end we get the titbit everyone's been talking about. "I would like Monolith Soft to play a central role as a strong partner in creating the Zelda series from scratch," Iwamoto said, when discussing future projects. "I hope that the know-how we have cultivated through our work together will further enhance the overall team strength of Monolith Soft, and we will continue to create unique series titles together."
We know that Monolith Soft is working hard on its next projects, so perhaps we could soon see a Legend of Zelda game spawned entirely from its own teams. We also know that Iwamoto is more involved with Monolith Soft's workings, so there would still be some supervision from Nintendo with its beloved IP.