Namco unveils Xenosaga

Namco has thrown the veils off its upcoming PlayStation 2 RPG Xenosaga. The game, which is being developed by the team responsible for SquareSoft's PlayStation game Xenogears, is the first episode in a series that spawns several chapters. Xenosaga takes place several thousand years in the future, when humans have migrated to assorted space colonies. A new governing agency has been formed, which consists of over 50 thousand extraterrestrial colonies. Unfortunately, a belligerent alien group known as the Gnosis has attacked these human colonies and for their defense the colonists have developed an advanced form of mechanized robots known as the Anti-Gnosis Weapons System. The game's lead character, Shion, works as the chief engineer in a research facility that develops military androids known as the KOS-MOS, which are tied in with the Anti-Gnosis Weapons System in some form. Shion personal life has been a tragic one, as she lost her parents during a previous war and her first love in an accident. Her tragic life has made her very forthright and direct in her ways.

The Xenosaga game world is in full 3D, a mini-map and radar directs the player. Monolith Software, the game's developer, will implement lower quality character models during battle, but the high quality models used in the rest of the game will display such effects as free-flowing hair and complex facial expression. Additionally, random battles, which were so prominent in Xenogears, is a thing of the past in Xenosaga, as players will be able to see full-scale enemy characters within the map.

Xenosaga will be released on 2 DVD-ROM discs and should arrive in Japan by the end of this year. A North American release has not been announced at this time, but we don't expect to see it released in that territory until late 2002. The first screenshots from Xenosaga can be seen at the Japanese Web site, GameWatch.