Xenoblade Chronicles has been a very interesting franchise for developer Monolith Soft. The first game was only meant to be released in Japan, but Operation Rainfall came and brought it to the West at the end of the Wii’s lifetime. Then, Xenoblade Chronicles X was born on the Wii U and was a standout title. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 then came to the Switch and sold well over a million copies. And now, the definitive edition of the first game has released on Switch and appears to be doing well sales-wise.
There have been MANY rumors as to what will come next for the Xenoblade franchise, including whether Monolith Soft will start work on another franchise. Which may be the case, but creator Tetsuya Takahashi also hints that the next Xenoblade Chronicles is already underway:
“From the point of view of giving Monolith Soft more variety, I would like to do a smaller-scale project if the opportunity arose. But right now, I think we should focus on increasing the value of the brand that we have created with the Xenoblade Chronicles saga. Of course, if we manage to organize ourselves in a way that allows us to do so, I would also like to give a small-scale project a chance.”
Ironically, that’s not unlike what another fan-favorite developer said in Platinum Games. As for Monolith, there have been teases and rumors of a new franchise for a while now. But, the team also noted that the epilogue content for Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, Future Connected, had clues as to the future of the franchise as a whole.
We’ll just have to wait and see what the team does.