Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is Nintendo’s holiday heavy hitter, and with it’s release date drawing ever closer, today Nintendo gave it it’s own direct to dive deeper into what is increasingly seeming like a massive game. If you missed it though, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered, as here we’ll be rounding up the most exciting news and announcements from the direct.
The direct began with a narrator telling us the history of the game’s world, revealing that humanity once lived in Elysium, the World Tree. For unknown reasons, a being referred to only as “The Architect” cast out humanity, leaving them seemingly without a home. Thankfully, the gargantuan titans, beasts of varying sizes and shapes, allow humanity to survive by living upon their bodies, with different nations springing up on some of the larger titans.
After that narration ends, a character trailer is next, but not before a special announcement is made: that free DLC for a Japanese audio option will be available alongside the game’s release. As a result, the character trailer is in Japanese with English subtitles to show off that feature.
The character trailer begins with quite a shock, as Rex, the protagonist, is killed by the mysterious and masked Jin immediately, with a stab to the gut. In order to save his life, the nearby Pyra, a being known as a Blade, shares half her life force with Rex, in exchange for asking Rex to escort her to Elysium. These three aren’t the only ones shown off either, as the trailer gives us looks at plenty of characters, both allies and foes alike. Some of the allies include characters like Poppi, a robotic Blade, Zeke, a driver who seems somewhat clumsy as he almost falls off the edge of a titan, and Dromarch, a Blade with the appearance of some kind of white tiger. There also seem to be plenty of antagonists, with characters named Vandham, Bano, Amalthus, and Brighid joining the mysterious Jin in being obstacles towards Rex and Pyra’s goals of getting to Elysium, each having their own reasons to want to get there.
Blades are artificial lifeforms that bond with Drivers like Rex. These living weapons boost Drivers’ power in battle. #XenobladeChronicles2 pic.twitter.com/lS9C4rsczP
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) November 7, 2017
Blades are artificial life forms that take on a number of different appearances. The direct shows off Blades that are bird girls, tigers, demons, and more in addition to the more familiar human-like Blades, each having their own abilities and personalities. Blades connect with drivers via Core Crystals, diamond-shaped gems that contain seemingly random Blades, as the direct mentions that if you’re after a specific blade, you’re best served collecting as many Core Crystals as possible. There’s also a special blade, Poppi, whose abilities can be customized by playing a cute little retro minigame featuring a Nopon treasure hunter.
Across the different Titans, there’s a huge variety of wildlife, from plains to snow-covered mountains to desert wastes, the Titans have it all. Each Titan and biome has it’s own wildlife and ecosystem, with different animals appearing not only based on the climate but also the weather and time of day. This even includes the tides of the Cloud Sea below, which can allow players access to different areas depending on the current tide. The different creatures also have their own AI, some preferring to stay in groups, while others prefer to ambush battles already in-progress. There are also unique monsters, special enemies that can be fought in specific areas, that carry rare treasures. They can be re-fought via tombstones to farm their rare drops. As seen earlier, there are also plenty of humans to oppose Rex and his group.
Alrest is filled with wild creatures. Defeat a powerful beast and a tombstone will be left to commemorate it. #XenobladeChronicles2 pic.twitter.com/mR3B47SmS7
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) November 7, 2017
Here the Direct gets into more specifics about Blades. In addition to special overworld abilities, like creating ice bridges or allowing speedier travel, Blades also have unique in-battle abilities. You won’t have access to all of these abilities immediately, but through a reworked version of the Affinity mechanic from Xenoblade Chronicles 1, players will be able to bond with their Blades emotionally, unlocking new abilities and traits for them as a result. Of course, you won’t be able to keep every Blade on you. Drivers can normally only have three Blades per person after all. Thankfully though, you can outsource extraneous Blades to mercenary groups, which will perform missions over time, earning you money, experience, and loot, while also raising your affinity with that Blade. This can be accessed at the Argentum Trade Guild, a sprawling market aboard one of the many Titans. This is also where you’ll find Poppi and her special retro minigame.
In battle, Blades and Drivers work together via action commands to perform special moves, each with different traits and damage types. Your allies normally fight on their own, but when it comes to special moves, you’ll have to activate your allies’ with button prompts that will appear on screen. As mentioned before, normally each Driver can equip up to three different Blades, which each have three special moves, for a total of nine per Driver. Pyra and Rex however, are special, as Pyra has an alternate form called Mythra that acts as a separate blade, allowing Rex to have four instead of the usual three. Blades come in three different categories: attackers, tanks, and healers. The best way to utilize their abilities in battle is via combos, combinations of special moves that cause special effects to happen to enemies, with three combo types: Battle, Blade, and Fusion.
Battle combos are physically based and triggered by using Driver attacks in a row, and cause physical effects to happen to the enemy, such as knocking them down or launching them into the air. Blade combos are triggered by Blade abilities and are elementally based. Using elemental attacks in certain orders will trigger Blade combos, which will cause status effects like debuffs to your opponent, and cause Orbs to start circling your enemy, which we’ll come back to later. Finally, Fusion combos involve performing both other types of combos together, which will result in highly damaging special effects and numerous debuffs, so you’ll want to use all three combo types as much as possible. Finally, through normal battle, players will build up a special bar that, when expended, will start Chain Attacks, another returning mechanic. These involve every member of the active party, Drivers and Blades alike, dealing damage to the enemy while they look on helplessly. Remember the Orbs from earlier? If you trigger a chain attack on an enemy with orbs circling it, the chain attack will last even longer than it normally would, allowing for even more damage.
The Direct’s final announcement was the reveal of an expansion pack, DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 that, over the course of time, adds quite a bit of new content to the game as you can see above, culminating in an all-new story in Autumn of next year. To promote the upcoming game, players can unlock a Rex costume for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and will be obtainable in-game via a new side-quest added as a free update. Both consoles get the costume too, so nobody feels left out.
The game and the expansion pack both launch together on December 1st, with both costing $89.98 in the US, and €76.98 in Europe. The special edition also launches the same day, which includes a 220-page artbook, and a CD featuring the game’s soundtrack as well. There’s even a new pro controller launching the same day based on Pyra’s coloration. You can pre-purchase the digital version today, and the eventual pre-load for the game will require 13 GB worth of storage.
That’s all we have for today, but for future Xenoblade Chronicles 2 news, stay tuned to NinMobileNews, as we’ll be covering any and all news as it breaks.
