With Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, the last major Wii U exclusive will find a new home on Switch. But it’s not just a spiffy port of a cult classic. A new trailer shows the 2025 version will add new characters to fight with, mechs to pilot, zones to explore, and a much-improved UI.
Instead of reacting to the current flood of Switch 2 leaks, Nintendo decided to release a new Xenoblade Chronicles X trailer teasing what will be different when the open-world RPG hits Switch on March 20. In addition to showing off the game’s sprawling alien planet geography and setting up the stakes for its sci-fi story, the trailer also gives longtime fans a glimpse of new content, including a section of Chrono Trigger-esque floating islands teased at the very end which weren’t part of the original game.
But the most important addition to the 2015 game is probably the reworking its UI seems to have gotten. The on-screen HUDs for Xenoblade Chronicles games are notoriously busy and tiny, and Xenoblade Chronicles X was perhaps the series’ worst offender of all with tiny character portraits and stat bars on the left side of the screen while ability cooldowns were wedged in along the bottom.
In the Definitive Edition, the fonts are bigger, things are more spread out, and there’s more information on the screen explaining what bonuses players will get from what abilities, as well as a combo guide for the game’s all-important but very obtuse Overdrive system. It’s still busy but a lot easier to parse, and will hopefully be part of an overall attempt to make Xenoblade Chronicles X’s myriad systems easier to navigate for new players.
The trailer also ends with a look at a hooded figure on a beach, suggesting new story content is coming that might continue the decade-old Wii U game’s story. Fans are already speculating that it might be on the level of Xenoblade Chronicles 3‘s Future Redeemed expansion, which helped tie that game into the other entries in the franchise. At the very least it looks like Xenoblade Chronicles X will be a complete package worthy of the Switch’s final year as Nintendo’s main console.
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