Back in April, we reported that Monolith Soft — the studio behind the acclaimed Xenoblade franchise and a huge help on Breath of the Wild — were recruiting for more staff to work on a new Zelda game. At the time we were unsure what this title could be, as it seemed unlikely that such a powerhouse would be needed for the Link’s Awakening remake. Now we all but know for certain that Monolith Soft is, in fact, working on the sequel to 2017’s masterpiece, Breath of the Wild. What we don’t know, however, is why they’re still hiring staff.
As reported by the website Japanese Nintendo, Monolith Soft is still seeking out much of the same roles as they were earlier in the year; the positions they are seeking to fill are, to name a few, Technical Artist, Programmer, Planner, Designer, and Management Support. In addition to these regular positions, the team at Monolith Soft is also seeking out freelancers to perform the roles of Character Modeler, Concept Art Designer, Scenario Planner, and Map Modeler.
The fact that these job postings are still available brings a few questions to mind: Where is the team at in terms of development progress? Are these positions newly reopened? Were these positions ever filled in the first place? And of course, what does this mean for the release date of the game? Hopefully, this is one last push to get everything ready for a relatively near upcoming release, but the titles of the positions seem to lend themselves to being much earlier in development than anyone anticipated.
We won’t know for sure what the status of the game is until Nintendo drops their silence on the sequel, with the last bit of news being the initial announcement trailer at E3 2019. You can be sure that as soon as Nintendo gives us more information it will be covered right here on Zelda Universe.
