Xenoblade Chronicles X is an upcoming big Wii U game. Literally. In a recent Famitsu interview (via Hachima), Monolith Software’s Tetsuya Takahashi talked about the upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles X. From the sound of it, the game is massive.
According to Takahashi, during their most recent gameplay check, there was over 300 hours of playtime. “But even so, there were still things in the game that weren’t played through to completion.”
The game is Monolith’s first title with online features. Takahashi calls it a “loosely connected online game” in that he means players will feel loosely connected to other players. “We’re making the game so that there is a feeling of solidarity, even without being conscious of other players in the game,” he explains. “It’s not like the gameplay in an online RPG.”
In Japan, where single player games have traditionally been most popular, this could be the best way to weave in online elements, but still keep the single player experience.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is also apparently five times larger than the last title. But, the good news is that, even as big as it is, the game will load quicker. The field is fully seamless, but there is loading for the cutscenes. “We’ve done everything we can to make the wait time as short as possible, but I recommend the download version of the game to those who are concerned about such things.”
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13 responses to “Xenoblade Chronicles X Sounds Utterly Massive”
Hngrh! Xenoblade Chronicles X makes me massive (with anticipation and hype)
The loading time and seemless thing was something I was worried about but it sounds like that shouldn’t be an issue :D. I loved how there were basically no loading screens in the original and you could save/load almost instantly.
I just hope that “300 hours” is more meaningful this time and not just 200+ hours of little side quests. I’m curious as to how the online works too…
XENOHYPE
I enjoyed my 200hours with Xenoblade on Wii. Looking forward to doing it again on 3DS 😉
112 hours for me! Would’ve been more but I just used a guide for all the side quests and NPC locations 😛
This game has piqued my interest 🙂
I genuinely can’t wait for this game.
Hoping that the 3DS re-release of Xenoblade Chronicles hurries up too.
Having never played xenoblade, what is it about? What do you do? Is it similar to Dragon Age: Inquisition?
No idea why someone downvoted you for asking this.
The original Xenoblade is a Science Fiction JRPG. The setting is basically that two huge giants, Bionis – a biological giant – and Mechonis – a mechanical giant – fought each other to a standstill in ancient times. They’re so huge that the story plays out on their bodies. Shulk, the main character, ends up in possession of a sword, the Monado, which is key to the whole thing. It’s hard to describe further without spoiling things.
It’s not like Inquisition at all. It’s a JRPG. Gameplay-wise it’s a series of vast areas filled with enemies of varying level ranges and so on, and each major area has one or two hubs with a ton of NPCs who will give you an enormous number of quests. The actual combat plays out much like an MMO. You control one character at a time, the others are AI-controlled (but you can swap between controlling them). They have a series of abilities that are cooldown-based, so it’s basically just hitting stuff that’s off cooldown in the right order for points. Each character plays fairly differently, too. I spent a lot of the game playing as one character that has a system where you cast a stack of up to three elemental spells that provide party-wide buffs (extra damage, or damage resistance, or whatever) and then can be consumed to deal damage to a target.
So in essence, the gameplay is quite MMO-like, but it has a strong JRPG narrative structure and plot. It’s very good once it gets going, arguably the best JRPG of last generation.
Five times larger than Xenoblade Chronicles? Yikes. That game was already massive.
This game is oddly titled though. The title implies it’s a direct sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles but it’s actually not even remotely related.
Between this, the new Zelda, and Witcher 3 – which all look to be massive open world games, I have no idea when I’ll find the time to play through them all.
Every time someone bashes the WiiU because big third party developers won’t release their AAA games for it, I laugh and launch them from Steam in my PC. Then I laugh a bit more knowing that games like this or Nintendo’s own lineup cannot be played anywhere else.
This game is Nintendo’s own line-up.
Monolith Soft is a Nintendo first-party developer.
Whoa, I knew that Nintendo had purchased stakes from Namco but I didn’t know the extent or that in the end, they had become whole subsidiaries. Fair enough, though the point I was trying to make still stands.
Oh, I don’t disagree with you. Perhaps I should have prefaced my comment with “Just so you know” or something.
I’m not sure I want a world five times bigger, unless I’m getting five times the plot as well. There’s no point having huge areas if all I’m doing in them is fetch quests, I might as well go play WoW or something instead. The big exploration-heavy areas were a lot of what made Xenoblade so good, but they’re not the element that I was playing the game for.