Easy Mode Coming to Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Today director of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Tetsuya Takahashi, shared new information regarding the upcoming patch releasing next week.

In addition to New Game Plus, players will have other things to look forward to including the option to skip Blade resonating scene, Easy Mode, and new sorting options.

The specific updates you’ll see are:

• The Blades from Torna (Obrona, Sever, Perdido, and Cressidus) can join the player’s party as Blades

• Akhos, Patroka, and Mikhail from Torna will also be able to join the player’s party as Blades

You can get them by resonating with Core Crystals (or they will join your party as you meet them in quests). As you might expect, you could potentially get them from a Common Core Crystal early in the game, which kind of wrecks the story, but our goal here is to prioritize making the game even more fun to play. I hope you can resonate with these Blades and enjoy having them in your party.

• All Blades can be dispatched on Merc Missions. This means that Blades like Pyra and Mythra that could not be disengaged from your party during an initial playthrough can now be dispatched.

• We are adding further growth factors to unlock in the Drivers’ Affinity Charts.

• You can now decrease your Drivers’ level at inns, and will likewise gain bonus experience according to their decreased level. You can exchange this bonus experience for special items, including an item that lets you increase the number of accessory slots available to a Driver. You can get these items by trading with the Traveling Bards who appear on each Titan.

• The Level 4 Special of a certain Blade will be unlocked.

There are also five updates that will apply not only to the Advanced New Game Mode, but to your first playthrough, as well.

• A locking mechanism to lock certain Blades in your party.

You can lock certain Blades from the menu so that they cannot be released, and to make them more visible. This feature will be useful in a variety of situations, such as if you get a 4-star Common Blade.

• The option to skip the Blade resonating scene.

• While expanded, the mini-map can display the same icons you have set up on the Skip Travel screen.

• Easy Mode added to the game difficulty. The original game difficulty level is Normal Mode. You can change the difficulty level at any time with the in-game options.

• New sorting options for Accessories, Aux Cores, and Blade Lists.

The following data will carry over to the New Game Plus mode from your clear save file.

Level of Drivers

Equipment and Affinity Charts of Drivers and Blades.

Resonated Blades

Obtained items and gold.

Development levels of cities and Merc Group level.

Content in the Event Theater and Unique Monster defeat status.

Note: quests, Heart-to-Hearts, Skip Travel points, and cleared Merc Missions will be reset.

Takahashi did stress that players who wish to play New Game Plus must start right away using a saved data file that finished the game. 

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is now available for Nintendo Switch.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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