The last update we had on Xenoblade Chronicles X was a small one, about its (admittedly good) music, and before that, all the way back in November, we finally got a Nintendo Direct video about it.

The information drought is soon to be over. According to the game’s official Twitter account, Monolith Soft are in high spirits as the project nears completion, and Nintendo will finally start releasing new Xenoblade Chronicles X details this month. (And not too soon: Xenoblade X , as it’s known there, is supposed to release in Japan this Spring.)

Until then, we have something to tide you over. The game’s director, Tetsuya Takahashi, had been posting on the above Twitter account, and we’ve compiled the important parts:

Development

After the original Xenoblade Chronicles was completed, Takahashi asked Xenoblade producer Yamagami if the next game in the series could have more of a sci-fi bend. Knowing that the game would be on the Wii U, they took advantage of the extra power by adding more seamless maps and online features. This experimentation was the basis for Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Takahashi feels that the things they wanted to do with this new game—the sci-fi setting and the seamless, open-world concept, as well as the online play—have been realized. “It’s been 15 years since Monolith Soft was founded and I finally feel like I have successfully created an RPG where humans and robots co-exist, a long-held vision of mine.” (Thanks to NeoGAF for the translations.)

Staff

Yuichiro Takeda, returning to the new entry in the Xeno series as main writer, is focusing more on sci-fi this time around, rather than the classic fantasy of the original Xenoblade Chronicles. Compared to the original Xenoblade, X has a lot more story; helping Takeda with the workload is Kazuho Hyodo, an anime script writer who has plenty of experience in sci-fi.

Many artists, both external and internal to Monolith Soft, have been working on the game, and Takahashi wanted to recognise as many as he could. Kunihiko Tanaka is Character Designer; Takayuki Yanase, famous for his work on Gundam 00, drew the robot Dolls; unsurprisingly, design studio Kusanagi is doing the backgrounds for the game, as they specialize in background design, and have a lot of experience on anime and video game projects; and other artists on the project include Koichi Mugitani (who Takahashi mentioned designed “sexy battle suits” for the game), Yasushi Suzuki, Raita Kazama (the main image illustrator for Xenoblade), Yoko Tsukamoto (a famous fantasy illustrator), Takashi Kojo, Fumihiro Katagai, Hideyuki Matsumoto (who also worked on Xenoblade), and RARE Engine.

Composer Hiroyuki Sawano is doing the score for the game.

Game bits

Takahashi also spent some time discussing the world of Xenoblade Chronicles X.

As this is an open-world RPG, the game will have various factions for the player to interact with, and there will be a lot of different alien races (see the header image for an idea of the range).

Also, the game will include robots, called Dolls, which are five times as large as a tall human. The development team at Monolith Soft calculated the optimal height for these robot Dolls to be about 9-10 meters, since larger robots would require a larger map, and a larger map would take too much time for players to traverse. Takahashi mentioned giving a brief to one of the artists that the robots will be able to transform into various vehicles, so it’s even possible that players will be able to drive/pilot/ride them.

That’s it for now. As Nintendo gears up for its Japanese release, we’ll be keeping track of Xenoblade Chronicles X for you. Expect more some time this month.