Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Review: A world worth revisiting

When I play an open-world game, one of my first instincts is to explore the map, marking waypoints and identifying landmarks for easy access later on. I often wander off course from the main objective, but I see it as valuable prep work that will make tackling the main missions much easier down the line. In a game like Xenoblade Chronicles X, where the world itself is the star, this exploration proves to be incredibly rewarding.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is a massive game, and much of your time will be spent exploring its vast landscapes, leveling up, and completing missions to prepare for even more difficult challenges. Unlike the narrative-heavy Xenoblade titles that preceded it, X feels more like an offline MMORPG, focusing on missions and tasks rather than emotional storytelling. The game’s approach works, and the refinements to the original Xenoblade formula make this Definitive Edition the best version to experience.

Not Your Typical Xenoblade

One of the biggest shifts in X is its silent protagonist, who you can fully customize from the start. Your character wakes up in a life pod on Mira, a new planet humans are colonizing in the year 2054 after Earth was destroyed by an alien war. You join BLADE, an organization dedicated to searching for other survivors and uncovering the origins of the alien attack. The plot is fairly typical for a futuristic story, with the end goal being to hunt down the aliens who destroyed your home.

While the option to customize your protagonist and select conversation choices during cutscenes is appealing, your character, however, lacks the personality and depth of previous Xenoblade heroes. Even if you try to shape them through dialogue, they still come across as flat, especially compared to the lively and well-developed supporting cast. The game’s cutscenes can range from epic and cinematic to mundane interactions, but the true charm lies in the unique personalities and backstories of your team members.

As you progress, certain conversations deepen your relationship with other BLADE members, unlocking affinity missions that reveal more about their pasts. For instance, tough commander Elma has a softer side you’ll discover, while the youngest member of your team grapples with her insecurities. These missions, while not as emotionally charged as those in other Xenoblade titles, add depth and personality to the narrative. With over 20 possible characters to recruit, there’s plenty of opportunity to build bonds and uncover more about each one of them.

The Joys of Exploring an Alien World

That said, the true focus of X isn’t its story or protagonist—it’s the planet Mira itself. The game may sound like a repetitive cycle of completing missions to level up for the next chapter, but the real joy comes from exploring this gorgeous alien world. Mira’s five continents are filled with diverse biomes, each offering a unique array of landscapes, surprises, and dangers. From lush forests to vast deserts and fiery terrains, every corner of Mira feels fresh and exciting, with a sense of verticality that requires careful navigation to reach objectives.

Exploration is key, and a large portion of the missions will task you with setting up survey probes that unlock fast travel points and reveal hidden treasures, unique bosses, and more. The more you explore and uncover, the higher your survey score, which unlocks additional missions and rewards, including rare loot and deeper lore about humanity’s survival. These missions carry the game’s central themes but also reward your curiosity with a wealth of discoveries about the world humans are now trying to create and the new danger now threatening their existence.

In addition to exploration, some missions will ask you to gather resources, defeat enemies, or complete simple fetch quests. It’s a good mix, and while not all missions will be winners, the variety allows you to tailor your experience to what you want to focus on at a time and pace yourself accordingly. You’ll earn experience points from these smaller objectives, so each one ultimately helps youlevel up to reach the story’s main missions.

Refined Yet Familiar Combat

Exploration, however, isn’t without its dangers. Mira is home to dozens of alien species, from small, aggressive avian-like creatures to enormous, formidable monsters. Some creatures are within your level range, while others may be far stronger, so you’ll need to approach each area with caution. You can choose whether to engage in combat or avoid certain creatures altogether, but be warned: some monsters can wipe you out in a single blow if you run at them carelessly.

Combat in X follows the familiar Xenoblade formula, mixing real-time action with turn-based elements. Depending on your class, you’ll need to choose between ranged or close-range attacks, all while coordinating with your AI-controlled team to execute powerful Arts that can topple enemies. A new feature in the Definitive Edition is the Quick Cooldown bar, which lets you deploy an Art instantly after it’s used, adding another layer of strategy to combat. However, the cooldown bar only refills after a battle, so careful planning is still a must.

The game offers a wide range of classes, letting you play the way you want—whether as a tank, ranged attacker, or versatile fighter. As you level up, you can transfer some abilities from one class to another, creating a character build that suits your preferred playstyle. Later in the game, you can also pilot Skells—mecha suits that make exploration easier and combat more manageable. Customizable and powerful, Skells add an exciting dynamic to gameplay, sometimes making fight against weaker enemies a little too easy. When not in battle, Skells also make traversing mountainous terrains a breeze and open up a whole new way to explore the world.

Final Thoughts

The Definitive Edition also brings a host of quality-of-life improvements. Your entire team gains experience after a battle, even if they weren’t in your active party, which eliminates some of the more grindy elements of the original. The menus are more user-friendly, and you can swap party members from the main menu, eliminating the need to track them down on the map. The game also includes a helpful objective tracker in case you get lost, and while the graphics are a significant improvement over the Wii U version, the Switch version still has some minor performance hiccups that push the system to its limit.

Although the story in Xenoblade Chronicles X can occasionally feel underwhelming and its silent protagonist struggles to make an impact alongside the livelier supporting cast, the game as a whole is a sprawling, immersive experience. With over 60 hours of gameplay, and much more if you aim to complete every mission and uncover every corner of Mira, there's always something to keep you engaged. Despite its narrative shortcomings, it’s a world that’s easy to lose yourself in—whether it’s your first adventure or a return trip.