We’re almost ready to see the new “Xenoblade Chronicles X” as the game is scheduled for launch on December 4, and will come out across the globe to all fans who’ve been patiently waiting for the new installment. According to recent rumors, the developers are apparently planning something special for the game’s downloadable content as well, as players in Japan will have to pay for the DLC while those in America and Europe will get the packages for free.
The DLC is going to add four new characters to the title, and as we said above, those in Western countries will get the content without paying anything, while their Japanese comrades will have to pay the equivalent of $4 to get the new content. It’s also interesting to note that the developers have made some changes to the DLC for the Western variant of the game, in particular making one of the characters slightly older.
This is probably done in light of claims that her original age of 13 would make her a bit too young to be included as a character in such a game, although we’re not quite sure if that’s the entire reason behind the change.
The character does wear some clothes that might be seen as inappropriate in certain Western countries, at least for a 13-year-old girl – showing her in swimsuits and other types of revealing clothing isn’t really the best way to make a mature impression with this game, so this could have been a driving factor in changing her age from 13 to 15.
There are other rumored changes coming to the Western variant of the DLC, such as the renaming of certain characters in order to make them more suitable for Western audiences, although we don’t know the exact details of that yet. It’s possible that there may be even more differences between the Japanese and Western versions of the game, but there’s no way to know for sure until the game is ready and out on the market.
Other than that, fans of the game are also going to get the strategy guides for the game released on the same day as the main title, and will be available in two different editions, including a hardcover one meant for dedicated collectors.
We don’t know if there will be any differences in the localization in the guides as well, and that’s entirely possible in light of what we’re hearing right now about the main game’s content being changed like that. Hopefully the developers are going to preserve everything intact when it comes to features that define the main game as a whole, because players have been following the development of “Xenoblade Chronicles X” for a long time now. Many would definitely be disappointed to learn that some of their favorite features have undergone changes in order to make them more “appropriate” for Western audiences, whatever those changes might be in the context of the strategy guides.
Still, it’s not rare for Japanese games to see such changes in their design before they’re released internationally, and many fans of “Xenoblade Chronicles X” were actually prepared to deal with something like that for a long time now. At least according to most discussions about the game that are running online, where many players are sharing their expectations about the new game and their impressions from what’s been revealed about it so far.