Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Screenshots 10 IMAGES

Loading

Don’t worry about getting bored in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. From RPG staples like towns and inns to unique mechanics like cloud diving and bonding with Blades, Xenoblade will keep you busy even when you’re not progressing through its massive story.While we’ve already written about Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s beautiful open world and why it might be Nintendo Switch’s next great RPG , we recently sat down with Nintendo Treehouse to check out roughly an hour of the game and were introduced to a few of its early areas, plus its robust upgrade system and mechanics.We started out in an expansive open area called Garanti Plain, which was filled with wandering enemies ranging from weaklings well within our skill range all the way up to level 80+ powerhouses that we made sure to avoid. Next, we visited the town of Torigoth as well as a marketplace-like hub called the Argentum Trade Guild, both of which offered shops and side quests that we soon found out are essential if you want to be strong enough to take down enemies in story missions.After a few side quests, we earned enough Skill Points to upgrade our party’s affinity chart (a skill tree to upgrade stats like strength, agility, etc.). We also earned Weapon Points to upgrade Arts (the abilities you use in battle) as well as Core Crystals that allowed us to bond with new Blades, which essentially serve as your party members in battle and execute the Arts they’ve learned.To see everything in action, check out the video at the top of this page for around 17 minutes of gameplay including shopping, upgrades, and an early boss fight against some Ardainian soldiers.Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will be released for Nintendo Switch on December 1. Earlier this week, Nintendo revealed Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s Expansion Pass and free Japanese voice DLC , plus a new Xenoblade-themed side quest for Zelda: Breath of the Wild that will be released later today.

Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and wishes he had a cute blade to follow him around. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter