What we could see out of a Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Definitive Edition

You might be wondering: isn’t it too early to be thinking about a Xenoblade Chronicles 2 remaster? The answer might surprise you: not really! The original Xenoblade Chronicles released in Japan in 2010, and in America in 2012. It then received a Definitive Edition on Nintendo Switch in 2020. If Xenoblade Chronicles 2 were going to receive a remaster on the same timetable, getting it this year wouldn’t be out of the question. That said, given how Monolith Soft released Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition in March, that clearly isn’t happening. In fact, we think we’ll probably see a Xenoblade Chronicles 4 before a potential Xenoblade Chronicles 2 remaster, but after that, we think it’s possible that the studio will eventually revisit the game. So today, we’re going through a full list of changes we would want to see in a hypothetical Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Definitive Edition on Nintendo Switch 2. There are spoilers ahead, so be warned if you’re still trying to avoid them all these years later.

At the time of writing, it doesn’t appear that any of the Xenoblade Chronicles games are getting Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade packs or free performance boosts. Most of the Xenoblade games run well enough, but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is definitely the worst of the bunch in terms of resolution and performance. While performance is somewhat acceptable in docked mode, it looks crusty and blurry in handheld mode. The resolution sometimes hovers slightly above 360p in handheld, which is definitely rough going. That said, the frame rate is generally stable – it’s 30 frames per second and not 60, but it’s perfectly playable in handheld. It just looks really blurry! So it goes without saying that Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Definitive Edition will almost certainly improve the game’s graphics, resolution, and performance. One thing we’d like to see is Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s dynamic eye movement – in that game, characters’ pupils make subtle movements kind of like real people do, which actually goes a long way in further humanizing the characters and making them feel more realistic, in a way.

Even in the current Nintendo Switch game, lots of Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s areas look absolutely gorgeous. Uraya in particular is a standout, and the game’s beautiful soundtrack only adds to the feeling. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition received updated music, but we don’t really feel like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 needs that. Its soundtrack is already absolutely excellent, though if we had to guess, Monolith Soft would at least remix a few tracks and then give the option to switch back to the original if you want. Xenoblade 2’s overworld soundtrack is incredibly varied and dynamic. You’ve got tracks like Mor Ardain during the day, which is one of the most triumphantly grandiose tracks in the series’ history. Then you have Gormott at night, which has a soothing and flowing melody kind of like a fresh nighttime breeze. In short, Xenoblade 2’s soundtrack is one of its greatest assets. It doesn’t really need a refresh!

One problem that people have with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is its rare Blade system. If you don’t already know this, Xenoblade 2 hands out Core Crystals as dropped items. You can have one of your party members awaken a Blade from the Core Crystal, but the one they receive is generally random. There are rare Blades with distinct character designs and unique side quests, and then there are common Blades with generic designs and no unique content or side quests. Some of theserRare Blades are astronomically rare – KOS-MOS in particular has an exceedingly low drop rate. We do agree that the random drop system isn’t great, but completely removing it would go against the spirit of how the original game was designed. Right now, Xenoblade 2 has different tiers of Core Crystals, so maybe an ultra-high tier Core Crystal that’s guaranteed to drop a Rare Blade would help the situation. Maybe give them out as quest rewards every so often?

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 also receives criticism for its menus and user interface, which is often described as cluttered and clunky. According to an interview with Monolith Soft president Tetsuya Takahashi, the UI designers actually left the company partway through Xenoblade 2’s development. The remaining programmers therefore had to finish the UI on their own, and they weren’t very experienced with menu design. This issue was almost completely fixed for future titles starting with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, so we’d hope that a Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Definitive Edition would fix its clunky and complicated menus – especially the ones that have to do with Merc Missions and the like.

During some quests in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it’s also occasionally difficult to tell where exactly you’re supposed to go. Xenoblade Chronicles X introduced the optional Follow Ball that shows a defined path to follow – which received an upgrade in its Definitive Edition this year for the location of items. If you’d rather figure out where you’re supposed to go yourself, you can turn it off. But if you find yourself wandering about for too long and need some guidance, the Follow Ball would be a welcome addition.

Then we have Field Skills, which are one of the most unpopular mechanics in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Certain parts of world navigation require elemental mastery. Certain Blades have different Field Skills – for example, Pyra’s Field Skills are Fire Mastery Lv. 3, Focus Lv. 3, and Cooking Lv. 3. There are field checks for Dark Mastery, Earth Mastery, Electric Mastery, Fire Mastery, Light Mastery, Ice Mastery, Water Mastery, Wind Mastery, Ancient Wisdom, Focus, Fortitude, Girls’ Talk, Keen Eye, Leaping, Lockpicking, Nopon Wisdom, and Superstrength. While you’re traversing Alrest, you might find a high-level Leaping barrier that lets you jump to a higher area if enough of your equipped Blades have the Leaping skill. That means you need to go through Xenoblade 2’s convoluted menus and organize your equipped Blades and party members until your Blades have a combined Leaping level high enough to pass the barrier. And there are checks like these all over the game – it’s particularly brutal after Torna kidnaps Pyra and Mythra, which leaves you without their Level 3 Focus Field Skill. And the Spirit Crucible Elpys has a huge Field Skill check that sometimes necessitates hours of grinding. Needless to say, this whole system needs a rework – at the very least, maybe allow all of your Blades to contribute to Field Skill checks, not just the three that each of your party members has equipped.

All of the Definitive Editions Monolith Soft has released come with extra content in some way. For Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it’d be interesting to see if a remake also covers Torna: The Golden Country. But as far as new content goes, a postgame story would be a great way to add more context to the events that took place between Xenoblade 2 and Xenoblade 3. In Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Future Connected’s  main enemy is the Fog King. This is actually a Guldo from the Land of Morytha in Alrest, which if you don’t remember are humans who replaced their brains with Core Crystals. Instead of becoming immortal and intelligent, they essentially became immortal and zombified instead. A Guldo was transported to the world of the Bionis via a rift once it and Alrest began to slowly merge back together into nothingness.

Likewise, it’d be interesting to see a Xenoblade 2 postgame story where a Telethia from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 winds up as a Fog King of sorts on Alrest. We see a ton of Telethia entering the rifts in Future Connected, so it does make sense. One particularly interesting question to answer would be how exactly Nia became queen of Alrest. The world is full of different countries and political powers that are at odds with each other during the main story, so it seems unlikely they would all bow their heads and let an unaffiliated party rule over them all. That’s clearly what wound up happening by the time Xenoblade 3 took place, though, so an explanation of that would be nice. Not to mention that we could get more details about how the Agnian half of Origin was built – we know Tora was involved, and we can assume that Pyra and Mythra’s Core Crystals were some kind of power source because Alvis’ Core Crystal was used for the Kevesi half of Origin. That’s another question we need an answer to – how Bionis and Alrest became known as Keves and Agnus. Plus how Malos’ Core Crystal ended up in N’s Sword of the End, which was confirmed by Takahashi in a separate interview.

Then, finally, there’s the voice acting. Monolith Soft remakes have never recast voice actors, so we think it’s extremely unlikely that any changes are made to voice lines or voice clips in a Xenoblade Chronicles 2 remaster. That said, some of the characters – particularly Rex during crucial moments – drew criticism for awkward delivery. Another issue is that the characters’ mouths move in sync with the Japanese version, which sometimes creates scenarios where you can notice that the characters aren’t lining up with what they’re saying. This was actually fixed in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, so we’d expect the same if Xenoblade 2 is ever to receive a remaster. Some say this is because the voice actors weren’t given much direction, and didn’t have much context on how exactly their voice lines would appear in the game. Theoretically, recasting the same voice actors with more context could help the game sound better, but that’s a huge commitment that we’ve never seen from Monolith Soft for a remake. At least not for a Xenoblade game.

There’s a lot a Xenoblade Chronicles 2 remaster could improve. The original game is already great, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its flaws. Ironing out all of these problems would further cement Xenoblade 2’s status as one of the greatest JRPGs of all time, plus extra story content could completely recontextualize parts of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 if done correctly. Of course, at the time nothing at all is confirmed about a hypothetical Definitive Edition, but if we had to guess, we’d say Monolith Soft will probably revisit Xenoblade 2 sometime within the next ten years at most.

What do you want to see from a Xenoblade 2 remaster most? Is there anything you specifically don’t want to see changed? Let us know in the comments down below. In the meantime, you can read more about Xenoblade Chronicles 2 over at its official store page.