Xenoblade Chronicles X breaks free from Wii U jail with new Switch port

Nintendo has (at least) one more Wii U port in the tank for Nintendo Switch: Sci-fi role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is coming to Switch on March 20, 2025, Nintendo announced Tuesday. The Definitive Edition will bring enhanced visuals, added story elements, and other unannounced features to the original game.

Nintendo’s trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition ends with a tease that appears to allude to the re-release’s expanded story. It features an alternate version of the post-credits scene from the original Xenoblade Chronicles X, in which Lao Huang wakes up on the beach and is greeted by a mysterious hooded figure. The original game ended with the line “This story truly never ends…” and it appears that Monolith Soft and Nintendo will make good on that tease, nearly a decade later.

Developers Monolith Soft released Xenoblade Chronicles X for Wii U in 2015. The open-world RPG is set in near-future New Los Angeles, a human colony on the alien planet Mira. As a member of the organization BLADE — Builders of the Legacy After the Destruction of Earth, of course — your goal is to explore Mira and rebuild civilization for humanity’s last remaining survivors, all while piloting a powerful, customizable mech known as a Skell.

We had mixed feelings on the original game, praising the epic Xenoblade Chronicles X as “one of the Wii U’s best-looking titles” but critiquing it for its glacial pace and confusing UI. “Monolith Soft has once more created something special under the Xenoblade name; it just happens to have buried that something special under a mountain of annoyances,” we said in our 2015 review of Xenoblade Chronicles X.