Why all four Xenoblade Chronicles games need Nintendo Switch 2 Editions
If you’re at all familiar with JRPGs, then you’ve definitely at least heard of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. And if you’ve only heard of them and haven’t played them, you should definitely change that as soon as possible – or, potentially, wait just a little longer. Recently, Monolith Soft shared a recruitment video on Twitter, and fans noticed that the included footage of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 looked a little bit different than they were used to. Some pointed out different lighting and different textures, though in our opinion this isn’t doesn’t necessarily confirm a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game – even if the textures and frame rate really are improved, it could just be a development build. Regardless, this got us thinking about simple changes that Switch 2 versions of all four Xenoblade Chronicles games could use.
Starting with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, this game definitely needs some help. It’s a massive visual improvement over the original Wii version, with much more expressive and dynamic-looking characters and super-detailed and vast environments. In docked mode, it generally runs at around 720p and in handheld mode it runs at around 540p. Those are both supposedly the maximum possible resolutions for the game you’ll be seeing, to be clear – which means it does look a little fuzzy in handheld. The Nintendo Switch 2’s screen is bigger than the one for Switch, with a resolution of 1080p rather than 720p. This means that on Nintendo Switch 2, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition renders at around 540p – meaning it’s already blurry – and then is further stretched to fit the bigger screen. Needless to say, this game would benefit a ton from running at 1080p in handheld mode at a smooth 60 frames per second. All four Xenoblade games have beautiful environments, and that extra resolution would go a long way here.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 currently fares much worse on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. No matter which console you play it on, it’s terribly blurry – especially in handheld mode, where it supposedly renders in 360p. Regardless of the exact resolution, the game uses this really ugly sharpening and dithering filter that really makes everything feel low-budget. This is a huge shame, because once you get past that filter the game’s characters and especially environments look great. Bumping this game up to 1080p and 60 frames per second would make it feel like a completely new game – but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 could use many changes that wouldn’t be covered by a simple Nintendo Switch 2 update. We could realistically see a full remake for the game in a couple of years, but only if it doesn’t receive a patch. We actually wrote out a big list of adjustments we’d like to see in a remake, and you can check those out right here.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 could benefit from its own Nintendo Switch 2 Edition – it’s a wonder this game runs as well as it does on the original Switch. It targets 720p in handheld mode, which is a huge improvement compared to other games in the series – going from Xenoblade 2 to Xenoblade 3 is pretty much night and day. It still targets 30 frames per second, and the resolution does dynamically decrease depending on how much action is happening on-screen. But there are no major frame drops or performance hiccups – the potential Switch 2 Edition for this game would entail increasing the resolution and frame rate more as a quality-of-life feature. Most Switch games look blurry on the Switch 2, and that’s definitely something Nintendo needs to work on fixing. A performance boost would also apply to the Future Redeemed DLC, which also runs pretty well on the standard Switch console.
That leaves us with Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, which actually did just receive its own patch to fix things on Nintendo Switch 2. Players previously reported voice lines not syncing up with cutscenes, which is really strange given that Xenoblade X was the final major Switch release before Switch 2 – you would think Nintendo would have prioritized a fix here, given that some people may still be playing this 100-hour adventure. Furthermore, the game apparently has a broken 60 frames-per-second mode within its files, but it doesn’t work if you try to activate it. That could imply that a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition at 60 frames per second is planned at some point in the future, but who knows.
Which Xenoblade game do you think needs a Switch 2 patch the most? Do you think we’ll get any, or is Monolith Soft moving onto the next game and leaving the trilogy (and X) as-is? Let us know in the comments down below.
