E3 2014: Xenoblade Chronicles X Coming To Wii U In 2015

Nintendo announced that Xenoblade Chronicles X (formerly known as 'X') is coming exclusively to the Wii U in 2015, sometime next year. The game completely destroys expectations by going over and beyond what anyone remotely thought was going to be possible in the game.

Monolith Soft's open-world RPG for the Wii U is an absolutely gorgeous game that showcases some great scale and graphical excellence that the Wii U is capable of.

We didn't just learn that Xenoblade Chronicles X is coming next year for the Wii U, we also got to see tons of new gameplay footage, including the combat system, the open world exploration and the first city hub that players encounter.

Things got off to a pretty rad start with the official E3, which you can view below, and from there the hands-on demonstration revealed tons of new details about the game that's bound to make JRPG, RPG, action and adventure fans all excited.

So the combat system finally gets explained and we find out that the projectile based combat is targeting oriented. So you target an enemy and your character will stay locked on to that enemy as you attack them.

Melee combat is non-targeting, which means that players will have to manually approach and perform combo and special attacks on enemies.

There are some minor button-prompts that appear that enable players to get bonus boosts called “Soul Voice”. When the button prompt appears on-screen you can press the button and receive a benefit such as increased TP or more hit points.

For those of you thinking that you can just grab the biggest gun ever and keep your distance when fighting Impossibly Larger Monsters like in the movie The Myst, think again.

You can only boost your TP (or technical points) using melee attacks. So there's a fine balance between players wanting to utilize TP skills but also don't want to get in close to enemies. It keeps every player on their toes.

Also, the game has a dynamic ecosystem, so it's a lot like Red Dead Redemption or Monster Hunter. Not every monster/creature/alien is hostile and not every monster/creature/alien is friendly. Some can be provoked, others are passive, sometimes the behavior of the xenos in the game world will be determined by the time of day (i.e., some creatures only hunt at night or hunt in packs) while other times the weather will affect the mood and behavior of the creatures. It's a fully dynamic, unpredictable and entirely unique game that will alter and change per-player.

One of the best parts about it is that you don't see the loading screens as you traverse the environment and very much like an MMO, you can attack any enemy you want at any time. Of course, if you don't have the skills to take down a big bad xeno, you're likely to get curb-stomped into the planet's core.

The city hub will also contain all sorts of exploratory places for players to visit and purchase items, upgrade their gear, learn how to get hold of mechs, acquire vehicles and of course, load up on side-quests.

Additionally, the game has fully detailed character customization and very in-depth character micro-management. The character customization lets you choose hair, eye color, skin color, build, face structure and more. The micro-management allows players to alter skills, class-types, weapons, clothing and armor. It's a lot bigger and a lot better than what I'm capable of describing right now, and you'll be able to get in on this action starting in 2015, exclusively on the Wii U.