Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Production Notes #2: Script
On November 14th, the official website of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was updated in Japan, adding a new section: Production Notes. It’s a blog-like section, where members of the development team will come discuss various aspects of the game.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Production Notes #1: Drivers and Blades
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Production Notes #2: Script
For the second Productions Notes post, it’s Yuichiro Takeda who came to share a few words about the game. For those who never heard of him, he previously worked on the script for Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X.
He first begins by explaining that, from the point of view of a scriptwriter, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a lot of work. It has a lot of that “Tetsuya Takahashi-ness” fans of his works have come to know and love.
First, Tetsuya Takahashi presented the two scriptwriters (Yuichiro Takeda and Kazuho Hyoudou) with a dense plot, and then, they took it and used it to write the script (each one taking one half of it). Yuichiro Takeda worked on even numbered chapters, while Yuichiro Takeda took care of the odd numbered ones.
While they were doing that, Tetsuya Takahashi went and wrote all the stories, and at the end, they combined the three manuscripts. They worked that way in order to take advantage of the strengths of each writer, with Tetsuya Takahashi making corrections. That’s the same “technique” as the screenplay for a movie.
Yuichiro Takeda explains that, for Tetsuya Takashi’s fans, the end result is a game with a really dense story to enjoy.
When writing the script, Yuichiro Takeda was really inspired by the attractive characters designed by Saito Masatsugu (main chara-designer), and he was able to really get into the world of Alrest in order to write the story.
His favourite part in the game is the one with Tora and Poppi, in the 4th chapter. The thing is, he’s quite fond of robots, but also Nopon, and since the chapter is about both, it’s no wonder it ended up as his favourite.
As is very often the case with games, the script writing was completed several years before the game was even released. When he’s finally able to play it, it will be as a mere fan.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch) comes out on December 1st worldwide.
Source: Nintendo
