trading as Monolith Soft, is a Japanese video game development studio originally owned by Namco (later Bandai Namco) until being bought out by Nintendo in 2007. The company was founded in 1999 by Tetsuya Takahashi with the support and cooperation of Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco. Their first project was the Xenosaga series, a spiritual successor to the Square-developed Xenogears. Multiple Square staff would join Takahashi at Monolith Soft including Hirohide Sugiura and Yasuyuki Honne. In addition to the Xenosaga series, Monolith Soft worked on other projects including Baten Kaitos and Namco × Capcom, the precursor to their later Project X Zone series, along with assisting on projects from other developers. While several of its games have released on the PlayStation 2, the majority of its games have released on Nintendo platforms. As of 2019, Monolith Soft operates four studios. Its main studio is in Meguro, Tokyo that produces the company's original video game properties; the secondary Nakameguro GS and Osaki Studio similarly based in Tokyo, and a studio in Kyoto with mainly artists as its employees, which acts as an assisting developer for both Monolith Soft and for some Nintendo games. The design approaches of Monolith Soft have shifted over its lifetime, with early games such as Xenosaga and Baten Kaitos being distinguished by a narrative-heavy approach, while later games have focused more on gameplay. The company's stated goals are to create projects with wide creative freedom and to allow younger developers to contribute to these projects. The company is also notable for its focus on promoting a comfortable working environment with little to no overtime in contrast to the majority of other Japanese game developers, alongside collaborating with other studios and companies. History Origins Monolith Soft was founded by Tetsuya Takahashi, a developer who had previously worked at Nihon Falcom and later at Square, in which the latter was merged into Enix in 2003 to form Square Enix. While at Square, he and his wife Kaori Tanaka (also known as Soraya Saga) would contribute to the development of multiple games including entries in the Final Fantasy series. Following their work on Final Fantasy VI, Takahashi and Tanaka created a proposal for Final Fantasy VII; while deemed too dark for the Final Fantasy series, they were allowed to develop it as their own project titled Xenogears. Takahashi's ambition and drive prompted Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, then Executive