Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition will come packed with visuals improvements, and the game's director recently discussed the team's approach and what has been improved over the original.
Speaking with Famitsu, as translated by Nintendo Everything, director Tetsuya Takahashi confirmed that budget and time constraints prevented the developer from remaking everything, and so they started taking things one step at the time, starting from texture upscaling, adding shader textures to enemies and maps and proceeding to character models.
Then we remade things like the main and important characters’ faces and hands, the new equipment in the Definitive Edition, the Monado, the facial animations during cutscenes and scripted events, and so on. Even though we divided things up like this, before long, each member of the team began showing their passion and abilities, so we wound up incidentally touching things up like NPCs and enemies that we didn’t intend on changing initially.
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition is going to include a new epilogue set after the events of the main game called Future Connected. Tetsuya Takahashi himself recently confirmed that it will take around 10 hours to complete the story, while 20 hours will be needed to see everything it has to offer.
Alongside the improved graphics and Future Connected epilogue, Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition features a lot of interface and quality of life improvements that improve the experience a lot, as highlighted by Dave in his preview.
The reality is that XC: DE is not only the best looking edition of the original game, but the best to play through, and the most engaging. All of the small changes add up to a whole that overhauls what could, at times, be a plodding game to play, with messy menus, and too much to keep track of for anyone that decides to go out and actually clear through side quests. While it certainly doesn't look like a modern game made in 2020 from every angle, it's undeniably beautiful in its best moments, and still makes for an incredible story to experience all these years later.
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition launches next week, on May 29th, exclusively on Nintendo Switch.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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