While the world waits with bated breath for the announcement of the company’s next home console, Nintendo appears to be content making other announcements that no one is expecting. First it was Alarmo–the Nintendo-themed alarm clock that can wake you up to the sounds of Mario, Zelda, and dying Pikmin–and now it’s a surprise game reveal: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, a remaster of the Wii U’s Xenoblade Chronicles side-story action-RPG, is coming to Nintendo Switch on March 25.
Xenoblade Chronicles X takes place on the large open world of Mira, which is inhabited by humans and massive monsters alike. Players will create a custom character, with whom they’ll join BLADE, a human protection agency based in the city of New Los Angeles, who fight the dangers of Mira with large bipedal mechs called Skells.
The updated version will include visual upgrades, story elements, and more, with one of those new story elements is teased in the game’s announcement trailer: a mysterious hooded figure approaches the player on a beach, but the camera cuts away before their face is revealed.
The Definitive Edition comes as a surprise to many Xenoblade fans, as Monolith Soft executive director Tetsuya Takahashi once said in an interview with USGamer that a lack of budget would keep the game from being remade, as it’s “a massive game. Re-creating it would be really difficult.”
Xenoblade Chronicles X was first released on April 29, 2015, nearly 10 years to the day before this new Definitive Edition. GameSpot’s 8/10 review called it a “truly enormous game,” saying that “after as many as 60 hours, X continues to provide taller mountains to climb, and stronger opponents to topple, with no end of new challenges in sight.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch on March 25 for $60. It’s available now for preorder on the Nintendo eShop, and it is also included in Nintendo’s Game Voucher program.
