Xenoblade Chronicles X Takes Around 300 Hours To Complete And Will Track Your Playtime Beyond 100 Hours

As you may have heard the Japanese version of Xenoblade Chronicles contained a bug which wouldn’t keep track of your playtime beyond 99 hours and 59 minutes. Thankfully this has been fixed in Xenoblade Chronicles X. Xenoblade Chronicles X executive director Tetsuya Takahashi also explained that when he playtested the game recently he clocked in at over 300 hours. So this is going to be one big game.

“First of all, as a greeting, I’ll talk about the game’s playtime display. There was talk about how, now matter how long you played, Xenoblade Chronicles would be completed in 99 hours and 59 minutes. And so, we’ve changed that this time around.”

• Takahashi reiterated that while Xenoblade Chronicles X is a game from the same lineage as Xenoblade Chronicles, it is not a sequel to that game—hence the “X” after the title, instead of a “2″.

• The meaning behind the “X” (cross) also has to do with connecting with players far away (“across”). However, Takahashi describes Xenoblade Chronicles X as more of a “loosely connected” online game, rather than a regular online game. It’s unclear as to just what this means at the moment, but it could mean that the online features will be more asynchronous or passive.

• Monolith Soft only prepared one track with vocals for Xenoblade Chronicles, but they’ve prepared a number of these for Xenoblade Chronicles X, enough to be considered quite a lot by RPG standards.

• There are around 90 tracks in the game, and composer Hiroyuki Sawano was involved with all of them.

• Xenoblade Chronicles X’s battle system has the basic foundations of the one from Xenoblade Chronicles, but with an increased sense of speed. It has evolved into something that has a much more action-y feel to it. Characters can use short or long-ranged attacks, and there are no healer-type roles. The healing is done through a new system called “Soul Voice”. (This was demonstrated at E3)

• Parties consist of four members. The player will control his or her character, while the other three are controlled by AI.

• The number of unique monsters in the game and the equipment that you can acquire have been greatly increased. When Takahashi playtested the game recently for a final check, he clocked in at over 300 hours.

Thanks, Shuhei Yoshida