We have a crazy new rumor about the Nintendo Switch Online Playtest, and of all things, Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition.
Intrigued? Let’s start with Nintendo’s official store listing for Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition. It has this text in the page:
“Join your choice of military organization within BLADE to take on even more missions—or even team up with up to 32 players from near and far online* in Squad Tasks, Online Missions, and extra-challenging Global Nemesis Battles!”
Xenoblade Chronicles X also had online features when it was first released on the Wii U in 2015, and there was a lot of speculation that those features were severely cut back from what they had originally planned. Don’t get us wrong here – what Nintendo was able to deliver on that console was impressive and mind boggling as it was. Part of the reason fans were demanding that Nintendo and Monolith Soft bring this title back was they wanted to see a better realized version of the game on more capable hardware. And it seems that that wish has come true, though we will have to wait for Nintendo and Monolith Soft to elaborate on what they have added.
Or do we? This video from YouTuber MegaMotionCD offers an intriguing theory about the Nintendo Switch Online Playtest. He believes that the playtest was not a demo for an upcoming independent game, but actually a test for Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition. His argument is that the way the playtest works matches how Xenoblade Chronicles X’s online play modes worked.
It’s a crazy rumor for sure, but it does somewhat line up. We don’t want to scrutinize every detail here, but do you remember reading that the Nintendo Switch Online Playtest had beacons? In Xenoblade Chronicles X, they were called Data Probes. And both games worked on the general idea of colonizing a planet for the players to populate in.
If you want to do your own sniff test on this, we reported on leaked details from the Nintendo Switch Online Playtest here and here. And here’s a fan wiki explaining Xenoblade Chronicles X’s online features here.
What we do want to talk about here is that it does explain a curious detail about the Playtest. Nintendo was definitely not naïve. They knew, in spite of their warnings and reputation, that some of their playtesters would leak the game. And if you think about it, Nintendo could have focused on a smaller group of testers to make sure details don’t come out. Valve managed to keep most of their Deadlock testers quiet for a very long time, long before The Verge decided to ‘report’ on it.
So maybe Nintendo wasn’t afraid that the Playtest was going to leak because they knew that that wasn’t going to be what the final game looked like. Maybe they could be open to making a Minecraft/Roblox like experience down the line, but this was really for Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition, and they came up with the clever idea of disguising it.
It implies that Nintendo has really high hopes for this game, and for Intelligent Systems. The studio did find success in Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, the third remake of the Wii original, to the point that they also made Xenoblade Chronicles 2 &3 on the Nintendo Switch. But the Xenoblade Chronicles Trilogy is at a level of success incomparable to those found by the likes of Splatoon or Animal Crossing. Nintendo knows Intelligent Systems are capable of more, and this might be their opportunity to step up as Nintendo’s next tentpole franchise, and a real pillar in their game library.
The rumor has so many exciting connotations that we almost want to congratulate Intelligent Systems already. But of course, we should wait to find out if this theory is on the money, and Nintendo really did just give Intelligent Systems a big bag of money and free rein to become a real industry player.
