Xenoblade Chronicles X helped Monolith Soft to lay groundwork for HD development

Xenoblade Chronicles X, the sequel to 2010/2011/2012’s (depending on where you live) cult hit Wii exclusive role playing game, looks absolutely stunning. it looks so great, and so ambitious, that you have to stop and wonder at the development chops of Monolith Soft, the guys behind the game (and behind the original Xenoblade Chronicles as well). But then you realize this is their first HD game, and the sense of wonderment only rises.

That happens, according to an interview the developers made with EDGE, because this game let the developers lay the groundwork for HD development. And unlike so many other developers- most notably, so many other Japanese developers- even more notably, so many other Japanese role playing game developers (know who I am talking about?), they didn’t overshoot, but managed themselves to learn the necessary skills in a trickle, and worked up from there.

“Xenoblade Chronicles X is the first HD project for Monolith Soft, so instead of setting a number of hard-to-achieve targets, we are working on steadily building up key skills. Our goal with this game is first to lay the groundwork for [our] HD game development, so as to not overreach ourselves and cause problems,” Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi discussed with EDGE.

This sounds like a reasonable development strategy, and it seems to have paid off- Xenoblade Chronicles X definitely looks like one of the most exciting games coming up, not only on its system or in its genre, but in general.