Nintendo’s Biggest Open World Sci-Fi Game Returns After a Decade in Hiding

Will anyone notice this time?

This vast open land is just a tiny fraction of the game’s world. Nintendo Switch screenshot captured by the author.

Almost ten years after it first launched, Nintendo and Monolith Soft’s amazing open world sci-fi RPG Xenoblade Chronicles X is finally back, and this time it’s out on a platform that people actually own and care about.

2012’s Wii U console was a grand failed experiment, and probably an intense embarrassment for Nintendo. They went from dominating the sales charts with the Wii and the 3DS consoles to barely registering a blip with their grand home console follow-up. No one could have guessed that they’d go from the best-selling console of all time to one of the biggest flops in just a few short years. It was wild and kind of unprecedented.

Looking back now, the Wii U was kind of ahead of its time. Its tablet controller wasn’t a standalone portable device like the Switch, instead relying on a super fast video stream to transmit data back and forth to the main system. It worked so well that I’m still waiting for modern in-home remote play to catch up. The console also wasn’t too lacking for power; it could outperform the Xbox 360 and received several enhanced ports from that machine.

I think its biggest mistake was that it misunderstood the Nintendo audience at the time. The Wii was mostly seen as…