Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is an action role-playing game, the third title in the Xenoblade series. Similar to previous games, the player controls a main character out of a party of three.[2][3][4] The game employs an open world design, with a day-and-night time cycle that often affects in-game events, including quests, enemy strength, and item availability. Unlike the two previous titles which consisted of a cohesive open world through which player could journey uninterrupted, the game takes place on several lands, between whom the player travels via a fast travel option.[5]
Different from prior titles, characters in the party also control additional beings known as Blades. Each character can only have three Blades active at a time, which determines the character's class, between offensive attacker, healer or defensive tanks.[6] The game's Blades and skills are based on eight elements: fire, water, wind, ice, electric, earth, light and dark.[7][6] There are a total of 40 distinctly unique "rare" Blades to collect throughout the base game with an additional 11 being obtainable either through downloadable content or New Game Plus in later patches. Most of the game's Blades are not a part of the main story, and can be assigned to any Driver; among those is KOS-MOS from the Xeno sub-series Xenosaga.[