First, here's the relevant section from
the English version of Takahashi's message:
The key visual features a broken great sword of Mechonis and the body of the Urayan Titan with a gaping wound. I imagine everyone who saw the trailer was quite surprised by the final scene. What is this visual hinting at? I can’t reveal that just yet. What I can tell you is that this visual was conceived quite some time ago. More precisely speaking, we came up with it sometime between the end of development of Xenoblade Chronicles and the beginning of development of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. So, it’s not something we recently added to the series.
Specifically how he says the visual was conceptualized between the completion of Xenoblade 1 and before the start of Xenoblade 2's development. I've also seen a claim that the Japanese version of the message seems to imply the visual was conceptualized a long time before work Xenoblade 2 began.
I double checked the original Japanese statement. It says "『ゼノブレイド2』の開発に入る大分前から構想していたものでした。
" The English translation seems to omit the word "大分" which clarifies that it was created a considerable amount of time before XC2's development.
We know planning began for Xenoblade 2 began in July 2014 (
source). If the tweet is correct, long before Xenoblade 2's development began might mean the visual was conceptualized early to midway through the development of Xenoblade X. I started wondering if any interviews about Xenoblade X could have been hinting at Takahashi conceptualizing ideas for future games during the production of Xenoblade X, and I did remember one specific conversation from
the Xenoblade X Iwata Asks.
Kojima:
Come to think of it, Takahashi-san wrote a lot. I've worked with Takahashi-san for a long time, but this was the first time I've seen him write so much for a game's plot. It was as if he was writing a novel.
Takeda:
Yes, it was like reading a novel.
Kojima:
It was quite a read on its own, so I even suggested to Takahashi-san to get it published.
Iwata:
In other words, you put together a script using the pages and pages of plot written beforehand.
Takeda:
That's correct. I carefully picked out the stories that fit with the game's content and scale and turned them into scripts.
Koh Kojima and Yuichiro Takeda mentioned Takahashi writing an enormous amount during the development of Xenoblade X, with Takeda then picking the stories that would get used for the game and fleshing them out into scripts. I had always assumed Takahashi's writing mentioned in this conversation was either an initial story bible for Xenoblade X or a story bible for a potential series of Xenoblade X games.
There's one more quote I can remember that's relevant to this discussion, and it's from
a 2020 interview with Takahashi.
VG247: On this topic, there's some curious small game-connecting changes in Definitive Edition - like Alvis' necklace being changed to reference Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Is your intent behind changes like this just a nod and a wink to fans, or are these attempts to more deeply and more obviously connect the universes of the games? Do you want to draw these universes closer together?
Takahashi: From the beginning, each entry in the Xenoblade Chronicles series has depicted a single episode within the flow of a larger time and space. So they are, at their roots, closely connected with each other, but we’re flexible with changing the means and ways in which we depict this in each entry.
Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are like two sides of the same coin which might be why it feels like the connection between them seems to be particularly standing out.
Going by this quote, it sounds like Takahashi is saying Xenoblade X is connected with the rest of the series. Between all of these quotes over the years, I'm starting to wonder if some of the story concepts for Xenoblade 2 and Xenoblade 3 might have originated from this same story bible. If Xenoblade X is completely separate from the numbered entries, this possibility might not make much sense. Since Takahashi seems to be claiming each entry in the Xenoblade series is connected though, it might be possible that some of the ideas for Xenoblade 2 and Xenoblade 3 stem from the same story bible Takahashi wrote during the development of Xenoblade X.
This next claim is more of a stretch, but I'm starting to wonder if Takahashi's writings during Xenoblade X's development weren't just a story bible for Xenoblade X or a potential Xenoblade X series. I'm beginning to question if they might have been a story bible for the Xenoblade series as a whole. Dare I say something along the lines of a Xenoblade Perfect Works timeline.
