When Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was announced, there was a lot of excitement and speculation. Excitement, because naturally, a new game in the legendary franchise will incite that kind of fervor. Speculation, because Xenoblade Chronicles already had a follow up on the Wii, and it was called Xenoblade Chronicles X. What did this being called Xenoblade Chronicles 2, mean, then? Was X being ignored and retconned? Or did it mean that this game would be a direct followup to the original, unlike X, which had told its own story?
As it turns out, it meant neither of those. “It’s a completely different world, with completely new characters. It’s a different game,” Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi said in an interview with IGN. “The way I see it, I feel as though Xenoblade 1 and 2 are connected and linked in the sense that they’re linear and story-driven games, whereas Xenoblade Chronicles X was more focused on open world and exploration, and maybe an online aspect. I feel like I’d like to continue to create games separating those two aspects out.”
It makes sense from his perspective when laid out like that, of course- although, for many more casual fans who are not as caught up with the series, it will probably still be confusing. Xenoblade 2 is due out exclusively on the Nintendo Switch later this year.