Takahashi – working with Switch vs. Wii U, Nomura collaboration, “would love to think about” Xenoblade X Switch port

If the big interview we translated with Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi wasn’t enough, TIME also has a discussion with the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 director. The latest discussion covers Switch vs. Wii U development, how the collaboration with Tetsuya Nomura came to be for certain character designs, and a possible Switch version of Xenoblade Chronicles X.

These excerpts and a few other notable ones have been posted below. You can read the full interview here.

On whether there’s a visual motif in the Xeno games…

Tetsuya Takahashi: In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, there are what we call core crystals, the blue crystals you might have seen in the trailer, and these act as the game’s version of the memory cube or Monado. I think you’ll notice that the female character also has a mysterious, interesting-shaped crystal on her chest. As you play the game, you’ll come to understand why it’s shaped that way.

On the theme in Xenoblade Chronicles 2…

In terms of a theme in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, there are all of these Titans, and their lifespan is about to end. The people living on these Titans now have to find a way to continue their lives, because the land they’ve lived on is about to die. So it’s about these people’s quest to find where to live.

Also, there are these lifeforms called Blades. They’re not human, as the title indicates — the “Xeno” part of the title, which means they’re not human. They’re unique lifeforms, and there’s this theme of how humans and Blades can coexist and learn to live with each other, and learn to not only coexist, but protect the world that they live in.

On working with Switch compared to Wii U…

The ease or speed of developing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 stems a lot from our having already created this architecture with Xenoblade Chronicles X. The game portion of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is kind of overlaid on top of that fundamental architecture. I think that made the biggest contribution to why development went so fast. And in terms of Switch versus Wii U, another point is that we’ve only had to deal with one screen, so that also has made development a little bit easier.

And so to add to that, both at Nintendo and at Monolith, we wanted to have a major large-scale roleplaying game early in the Switch’s lifecycle. We thought about how we might accomplish that, and we wanted to do the same thing with the Wii U. But the development for Xenoblade Chronicles X was a little bit difficult, and that’s why it ended up being released a little bit later in the Wii U’s cycle. So we had a postmortem and tried to think ‘How can we deliver this at an earlier stage in the console’s lifecycle?’

On the collaboration with Tetsuya Nomura for character designs in Xenoblade Chronicles 2…

Good question. This story goes back 20 years. Back when I was about to start on a new game, and the name “Xenogears” wasn’t set yet, for that new title I needed a designer. And at the time there was someone who was directing the Final Fantasy series, Mr. [Yoshinori] Kitase. And then Mr. Nomura and I were in the team together doing character design. At the time, Mr. Kitase was handling Final Fantasy and I was doing this new title, and I wanted to work with Mr. Nomura.

So I was waiting for the final call to be made, whether he was going to be working on the Final Fantasy series or on this new title of mine. And then Mr. [Hironobu] Sakaguchi [the creator of the Final Fantasy series] came and said ‘Tetsu is going to do Final Fantasy.’ So I thought ‘Okay, I’ve got to find myself a new designer.’

But I’ve always wanted to work with him. And this idea of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 came up, and I thought I’d love to work with him again. After our discussion with Nintendo went through and this project was a go, I went directly to Square Enix, thinking that I’d be denied, asking if I could work with Tetsu. To my surprise, it was approved, and that’s how it happened.

On a possible Switch version of Xenoblade Chronicles X…

Thank you for that feedback. I think we’re currently completely focused on creating Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and even after I go back to Japan, I have a mountain of tasks that I need to overcome. But I would love to think about it, after the development for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is completed.