Guys relax. My ex-wife's 3rd cousin married the sister of the janitor who cleans the reception office at Nintendo of Bangledesh. She confirmed that the next Direct will be on February 30th! and will feature news about Metroid Prime 4 AND 5, Bayonetta 3 season pass, Call of Duty: Nintendo OPs, and Halo Master Chief Nintendo DX, which will apparently have a Mario red and blue armor set for Master Chief.
She also said the rumored Pokemon Stars, the Alolan remake for Switch, will be announced on Pokemon Day.
Definitely sounds like the Direct is quite soon. It could end up being their next big game. April/May perhaps?
Unless of course they let you get the age rating by just saying "it's exactly the same as the original, just go and rate that". In which case it doesn't mean anything.
@Dezzy We know there's an entire brand new story area, any rating board should have at least requested information from that. I'm still on board with the idea that it's the big May release, with a surprise new game in June.
We don't know for sure it's a new story area. They could be using it as a kind of end-game unlock where the new area just features a series of superbosses to fight. Or something like that.
I do hope it's integrated into the story though. In the original game they used that annoying teleport to skip the Shoulder area. It would feel more continuous if they insert it back into that place.
I'm so excited to see how good the environments look. That's the absolute highlight of Xenoblade Chronicles, and from the limited amount we saw in the original trailer, it looks like they have been massively upgraded.
From what we saw, they've redone all the textures in higher resolution (which you'd pretty much assume for an HD remaster), but they've also remade the actual geometry with a higher polycount (see the Bionis Arm area in the trailer for an obvious example), added more detail (see the extra plants on the Arm), and also added new material shaders (see the reflective metal on Metal Face)
Definitely sounds like the Direct is quite soon. It could end up being their next big game. April/May perhaps?
Unless of course they let you get the age rating by just saying "it's exactly the same as the original, just go and rate that". In which case it doesn't mean anything.
As mentioned earlier, they'd still have to scrutinize any new content. So I think this is a pretty good indicator that the game will show up before long. I'm banking/hoping for May or June.
I haven't played this game, but I've heard so much about it! I'm now glad I wasn't able to get a hold of the N3DS version and also didn't cave for the Wii U eShop download.
@Dezzy I'm just glad the character models aren't hideous in XC1 now. Also hoping they tinkered with the game design a bit and ditched the arts palette. It's so much nicer in XC2 just clicking a button and activating a skill.
Currently Playing on January 13, 2026: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (PC)
@Octane I'm actually genuinely convinced we'll get something Pikmin related this summer.
@Dezzy I still laugh every time someone says this is just a port. Like, if you can't tell that pretty much every aspect of the game has been touched up visually I don't know what to tell you.
I'm really hoping this extends to the mechanics as well. Streamline sidequests, improve the combat without losing what makes it unique in XC1, etc.
Well the first trailer was quite short, and they've stayed very faithful to the original, so I can understand that someone who isn't a super-fan might have taken a quick look and thought it was just an HD port with some minor graphical tweaks. Kinda like the Wind Waker on Wii U.
But nope, they seem to have remade pretty much everything. It'll probably end up being a bit like the Ocarina remaster on 3DS where it feels like the exact same thing, but you have to go back and compare to really see how much better it is.
Forums
Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?
Posts 2,101 to 2,120 of 20,145
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic