More Xenosaga story, character details

[06.07.01] » Namco continues to uncover more of its PlayStation 2 space opera. Find out about Zohar, the Vector Corporation, and the D.S.S.S.

   Namco has released another slew of details on its PlayStation 2 RPG Xenosaga. The inclusion of Zohar has been confirmed, a sign that players can expect to see names from Xenogears unchanged by legal issues. As in the original Xenogears timeline, humanity discovers Zohar in the year "20XX" (2001 in the XG timeline) and uses its powers to construct advanced spaceships.

   A few new details on the current state of the game world have been revealed. The Star Cluster Federation is dominated by the influence of the massive, interstellar Vector Corporation. Vector creates the mecha and KOS-MOS androids that are being used to battle the invading Pilgrimage Fleet of the Gnosis race.

   Heroine Shion Uzuki is a member of Vector's first R&D team and is currently working as chief engineer of the KOS-MOS project. She reportedly has a optimstic and determined personality, despite the previously-reported events in her past: her parents' death in a war when she was a child and her first lover's death in an accident two years ago.

   The hyphenated form "KOS-MOS" has been confirmed as the official spelling of the blue-haired android's name. However, "KOS-MOS" is just the general name for the line of androids built to combat the Gnosis; the specific android that joins Shion's party is, like the others, nameless. While the KOS-MOS androids run a "simulated personality OS [operating system]", they are designed to obey the principles of logic, establishment, and duty, and unconditionally protect their creators.

   KOS-MOS is reported to be the key female character through the Xenosaga series. Chaos, the mysterious silver-haired, blue-eyed boy, is her male counterpart. This description may conjure up memories of the cyclical reincarnations of Elly and the Contacts (Fei, Abel, Kim and Lacan) in Xenogears. However, in the original timeline, these characters don't appear until the Eldridge incident several thousand years later; KOS-MOS and Chaos could not be taking their place unless major modifications had been made to the story. It's certainly possible, then, KOS-MOS and Chaos are new recurring characters added to the "restarting" of the saga.

   A few more details have also been released on the Anti-Gnosis Weapon Systems (A.G.W.S.es, prounced like "Eggs"), Xenosaga's equivalent of Gears. The A.G.W.S.es are equipped with a device called the D.S.S.S. (pronounced "D-Triple-S"), which is used to capture the Gnosis. Though the A.G.W.S.es seen so far have all been human-shaped, others will take entirely different shapes. The Vector Corporation constructs a special brand of A.G.W.S., the AG-series. AG-series A.G.W.S.es are the standard vehicle of the Star Cluster Federation's troopers. Vector has recently completed work on the new, more efficient VX-10000 model, designed for national defense, and is presently shipping it on the new Vokrinde (tentative translation) battleship.

   Official statistics on the three main characters have also been revealed:

Shion Uzuki

• Gender: Female
• Height: 163 cm (5'4")
• Weight: 58 kg (106 lbs)
• Age: 22 years

KOS-MOS

• Gender: Female
• Height: 167 cm (5'5")
• Weight: 92 kg (203 lbs)
• Age: 18 years in appearance

Chaos

• Gender: Male
• Height: 169 cm (5'7")
• Weight: 53 kg (117 lbs)
• Age: 16 years in appearance

   Finally, new anime artwork of the main characters is available.