While its spirit lives on in the Xenoblade games, Monolith Soft's Xenosaga series has been dormant since the final game hit PS2 way back in 2006. Fans have been desperate for some sort of revival for years, and those hopes are rising again thanks to a new Xenosaga cameo in the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
Momo from Xenosaga will be a new equipable Blade in Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. "Swap between two forms to change her appearance and elemental affinity," Nintendo says in a new trailer as her light and dark forms are demonstrated.
This is not the first Xenosaga character to appear as a Blade in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, as KOS-MOS and T-elos already had similar appearances in the game. But Momo is awakening a new round of hopes that Xenosaga might live again after a decades-long stay in IP hell.
Developer Monolith Soft built the Xenosaga games under Namco, which maintained control of the IP as it morphed into Bandai Namco. Monolith Soft would be acquired by Nintendo in 2007, and created the Xenoblade series as a sort of spiritual successor to Xenosaga. No entry in the Xenosaga series has gotten a modern remake, remaster, or rerelease since that split occurred.
But fans were quick to note some oddities in the wake of Momo's reveal for Xenoblade Chronicles 2. For one thing, Xenosaga no longer appears as one of Bandai Namco's owned IPs on the company's official website – a removal that occurred just last year. For another, there's no copyright or trademark notes attributed to Bandai Namco in the trailer that showed off Momo, unlike with trailers featuring other Nintendo crossovers with third-party publishers in games like Super Smash Bros.
For some, that's reason enough to believe that Nintendo has acquired the Xenosaga IP, reuniting the rights to the series with its original development studio. That's a mighty big conclusion to jump to, but clearly it's a compelling enough theory for some fans – though that may just be the desperation to see Xenosaga on a modern platform talking.
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