Fans revive iconic Japanese role-playing game Xenogears after 28 years

28 years after the release of the jRPG Xenogears, fans are recreating it from scratch on the Godot engine as part of the Xenogears Atlas project.

Fans have begun recreating Xenogears, one of the most unusual jRPGs of the first PlayStation era, on the modern Godot engine 28 years after the original's release.

The Xenogears Atlas project is not a simple port or emulator: the creators are rebuilding the game from scratch, analyzing data from the original discs. They are recreating maps, dialogues, camera movements, animations, music, events, and cutscenes, striving to accurately replicate the PlayStation version.

The project is in its early stages, but the beginning of the adventure in Lahan village has already been shown. Future materials promise to demonstrate new locations, the full sequence of opening scenes, the world map, and the combat system.

The creators also want to adapt Xenogears to modern standards: add 16:9 aspect ratio, and in the future, improved textures and lighting. At the same time, cutscenes and dialogue boxes will retain the 4:3 aspect ratio to avoid image stretching.

Xenogears was released in 1998 and has not yet received a full remaster from Square Enix.