More than 25 years since its release, Xenogears remains one of the defining titles in Square Enix’s PS1 library thanks to its once-in-a-generation narrative. The gameplay of Xenogears is nothing to scoff at, to be sure, as it’s an engaging blend of on-foot traditional RPG mechanics alongside some excellent in-the-cockpit mecha sections. That said, the game’s development would be anything but smooth, resulting in the budget spiraling out of control and the game shipping with its second half essentially unfinished. After all these years, one aspect of the game that definitively stands the test of time is Xenogears‘ story, which sees a lofty vision held by husband and wife creators Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Song come to (mostly) full fruition.
Much darker than the typical video game narratives of the time, Xenogears takes massive risks in terms of its scope, ambition, and influences. Everything from Gnosticism and Jewish Mysticism to Jungian psychology and Nietzschean philosphy can be found within Xenogears‘ milennia-spanning storyline, and the fact that the game is supposed to represent one chapter of a multi-part saga shows the grand scale its creators would have in mind for the game’s overarching narrative. The spirit of Xenogears may live on in Monolith Soft‘s Xenoblade Chronicles series, but the original tale from Tetsuya Takahashi about the unwilling hero with a dark past is arguably still the best narrative that core creative team has ever produced.
Relevant Themes & Context
Attempting to explain Xenogears‘ story is akin to trying to solve a complex riddle, connecting an astounding number of disparate esoteric influences to piece together meaning in an incredibly complex tale of love, loss, and discovery. Accordingly, in order for the various plot points and story beats to have the intended impact, at least a working knowledge of its primary themes and influences is practically necessary. Central to an understanding of Xenogears‘ plot is at least a surface-level knowledge of Gnosticism. The most important fact to consider about the Gnostic tradition as it relates to Xenogears is that it dates back to the pre-Christian era and is an ancient school of belief that considers the God of the Bible to be a false deity known as the demiurge.
According to Gnosticism, the demiurge creates the physical world as a three-dimensional prison of existence, preventing the ascension of humanity to divinity by trapping our souls within decaying physical shells. This concept of ascension to semi-godhood by communicating with the true divine existence is key to understanding the conflict at the center of Xenogears. Equally as important is a base-level understanding of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud’s work in psychoanalysis, specifically the Jungian study of dreams and the subconscious. One of Jung’s primary goals was to see the conscious and the unconscious mind achieve unity with one another, and his belief that dreams and the existence of a collective unconscious play into the shared human experience is yet another of Xenogears‘ pillars.
Backstory – 10,000 Years Ago
Xenogears begins with a massive interplanetary vessel, The Eldridge, transporting what appears to be an entire planet’s worth of humanoid beings to a new home. This makeshift ark is peacefully traveling through space when a rogue AI suddently begins sabotaging the ship’s various systems, sending the crew into a panic and prompting the captain to issue a ship-wide evacuation order. The being causing the havoc on the ship is a sentient bio-weapon that goes by the name of Deus, its self-awareness leading to it defending itself against the humans aboard The Eldridge and eventually causing the massive space craft to crash land on a nearby planet.
A lone survivor emerges from the wreckage, a small boy resembling Xenogears‘ protagonist Fei, and shortly afterward a female figure emerges from the crash site as well. This figure acts as a mother to the small child and comforts him, the two of them somehow surviving the crash. Players will later learn that Deus is Xenogears‘ physical manifestation of the false god, or demiurge, and it subsequently creates the world’s first humans — Cain, the Gazel ministry, and a human reincarnation of the female that emerges from the wreckage known as Miang.
The ensuing millennia sees several civilizations rise and fall, with Miang continually reappearing throughout all of them as the connective tissue between humanity and Deus. The heroes that the player will come to know as Fei and Elly also continually reappear, with both of them being the descendents of the first two beings to emerge from the wreckage of The Eldridge. Civilization reaches a peak of technological advancement, resulting in the creation of flying cities and the titular Gears, but this utopia eventually gives way to a decline in which Solaris is the only flying city remaining from the Zeboim civilization.
The Village of Lahan
Xenogears begins in the year 9999, 10,000 years after the crashing of The Eldridge, and players meet Fei as he has a vision of a tragedy that is yet to occur. In the vision, Fei enters the cockpit of a Gear (despite not having any previous piloting experience) and lays waste to his village. The perspective fades out to show that Fei is daydreaming as he’s completing a new painting, the colors on the canvas resembling the flames engulfing his home. It’s an important day in Lahan Village, and as the player maneuvers Fei around and talks to the various NPCs, we learn that Fei is not a natural born resident of Lahan but instead arrived their years prior after suffering through some unknown tragedy.
The world in which Fei resides is in the grips of a centuries-spanning conflict between two warring nations — Aveh and Kislev. At a certain point in the history of the conflict, a mysterious group concerned with historic preservation and archaeology (Ethos) unearths a Gear from the Zeboim civilization. With most of the ruins containing gears residing within Kislev’s territory, the nation begins to gain a significant upper hand until Aveh starts receiving assistance from the mysterious floating nation known as Solaris. The most recent years of the conflict have seen both Aveh and Kislev enter something of a stalemate as the two nations rush to win an arms race by collecting Gears and more Zeboim relics.
That night, a battalion of Kislev Gears arrive in Lahan Village in pursuit of an experimental Gear with striking black armor. When Fei’s friend, Timothy, tries to save his fiancee and her younger brother and is gunned down by Kislev troops, Fei hops into the pilot seat of the Gear and blacks out.
Meeting Elly and Bart
When Fei awakens, Lahan Village lies in ruins and its residents cower in fear of the protagonist, prompting speculation that it was none other than Fei who is responsible for the village’s destruction despite having no memory of it. Fei’s friend and mentor (and Lahan Village doctor) Citan suggests that he leave the village and head to Aveh alone in order to avoid attracting more military presence, and the distraight protagonist heads into the nearby forest as part of the first leg of his journey of exile.
Inside Blackmoon Forest, Fei meets a mysterious young female soldier hailing from Solaris and part of the nation’s elite Gebler forces. Despite having never met previously, the two share a strange connection to one another and even somehow know each other’s names. Elly, not wanting to reveal that it was her unit’s persuit of Fei’s gear that brought destruction to Lahan Village, distances herself from the protagonist before both he and Citan ultimately have to come to her rescue against one of Blackmoon Forest’s more dangerous denizens.
Citan, revealing himself to be much more world-weary and knowledgeable than he initially seems, asks Elly to leave the party that night, worried that her presence will draw Solaris to Fei. Fei and Citan continue their journey, eventually coming across the mysterious Grahf in the desert, who claims to know Fei’s mysterious past and be on a mission to “kill god”. Following the encounter, Fei and Citan are picked up by an Aveh transport but then receive a timely rescue courtesy of the pirate vessel Yggdrasil, under the command of Bartholomew Fatima — the rightful ruler of Aveh.
Invading Aveh
After meeting Bart and his retainer Sigurd (who somehow very obviously knows Citan and refers to him as “Hyuga”), the sand pirate explains his mission to Fei and asks for his help in defeating Aveh’s current ruler and rescuing his cousin, Margie Fatima. Margie is the current reigning Holy Mother of Nisan, a religous nation without any ties to either Aveh or Kislev that acts as one of the sole peaceful and neutral zones in the ongoing conflict. Realizing that if he doesn’t help Bart that his mission isn’t likely to succeed, Fei reluctantly agrees to help rescue Margie and the party hatches a plan to invade Aveh during its annual martial arts tournament.
Fei, Bart, and Citan are successful in rescuing Margie from Fatima Castle, but Fei’s time in the martial arts tournament sees him come face-to-face with the mysterious Wiseman. Wiseman, like Grahf, is yet another strikingly familiar presence to Fei that somehow knows details about his mysterious past. Additionally, Fei meets high-ranking Gebler officer Ramsus for the first time, and it’s obvious that Ramsus holds a deep disdain for the protagonist. Following their successful mission, the party heads to Nisan to return Margie to her home and plan their next move. During their time in the city, Fei sees a massive painting of Mother Sophia, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Elly.
The plan that the party hatches is to take advantage of the confusion following Margie’s rescue and overthrow Aveh’s puppet ruler, Shakan. Unfortunately, Gebler forces from Solaris anticipate this move and counter the party at every turn. Once again, Grahf shows up and grants a mysterious power to members of Ramsus’ unit, prompting Fei to transform into the mysterious Id and wreak tremendous destruction. Once again, Fei blacks out following the incident.
Doing Time in Kislev
Under command of Ramsus’ right-hand Miang, Kislev soldiers retrieve Fei and transport him to the nation’s capital Nortune. Here, Fei becomes a prisoner and is forced to participate in the city’s battle arena as a means of potential escape. Along the way he defeats the reigning champion, Rico, and the two of them solve a series of grisly murders in order to clear Rico’s name and leave the city. Though it’s never explicitly stated outright, careful examination of the clues in the Nortune sewers will suggest that it is none other than Fei in his Id form that is responsible for the crimes.
Following the clearing of Rico’s name, fighting at the Nortune battle arena resumes, but Ethos forces sabotage Rico’s gear to malfunction and kill the ruler of Kislev, Sigmund. The plot is unsuccessful, though Rico is still blamed and faces execution. At the same time, Elly and Ramsus’ elite unit (The Elements) head toward Kislev under orders from Solaris to bomb the nation as a means of destroying Fei once and for all. The order comes from the real rulers of Solaris, the Gazel Ministry, who grow increasingly desperate and imaptient as Fei continues to elude either capture or death.
As the massive bomb-ship Hecht flies on a collision course with Kislev, Fei and Elly reunite (along with Rico) to steer the ship off course and prevent the nation’s destruction. Grahf shows up once again to assist Elly, though afterward he challenges the party as they try to escape aboard the massive warship Goliath. Believing Goliath to be under control by enemy forces, the Yggdrasil shoots the vessel down.
Aboard the Thames
Fei and Elly wake up adrift on the floating wreckage of the Goliath before eventually receiving rescue from The Thames, a massive floating city that wanders the ocean. The Thames is currently on a mission from Ethos to uncover more Zeboim ruins in hopes of unearthing powerful artifacts and Gears in hopes of giving Ethos the strength it needs to get out from Solaris’ control. The brief respite for Elly and Fei doesn’t last, though, as Ramsus quickly tracks them down and attacks the Thames.
Thankfully, Bart shows up in the Yggdrasil beforehand (also apologizing for accidentally shooting down the Goliath), and the party at least reunites before Ramsus’ attack. Ramsus, holding a personal grudge against Fei, challenges the hero head-on and ultimately injures him in combat. Fei survives the battle, but Elly recognizes that his wounds are near-fatal. After suggesting that they find help for Fei, the party meets a helpful individual on the Thames who might be able to save the protagonist’s life.
Ethos HQ and Billy Lee Black
Aboard the Thames is none other than Billy Lee Black, an Ethos member hoping to learn more about the Zeboim civilization. After meeting the party and seeing how dire Fei’s situation is, Billy offers to help the party by bringing Fei to the Ethos headquarters where he can receive state-of-the-art healing care. The treatment is successful, and Fei quickly recovers and rejoins the rest of the party aboard the Yggdrasil. In exchange for his help in healing Fei, Billy requests that the party return the favor by helping him clear out a Solaris facility brimming with Wels — failed experiments resulting from Ethos’ and Solaris’ genetic engineering research.
The party is successful in their mission to clear out the facility, but after returning to Ethos HW they find that all of Billy’s fellow Ethos members have been executed. The organization’s current leader, Bishop Isaac Stone, reveals that Ethos’ purpose is to act as a manipulating and controlling force for Solaris against the planet’s surface-dwellers, who they refer to as “Lambs”. With Ethos attempting to break away from Solaris’ control, the mysterious nation instructed Bishop Stone to eliminate all opposition to the group’s true mission.
The Zeboim Excavation Site, Tower of Babel, and Shevat
Bishop Stone escapes, prompting Fei and his allies to give chase. Their pursuit of the Ethos leader leads the party to a major Zeboim excavation site, and within they uncover several startling revelations regarding the planet’s previous major civilization. One of the main experiments residing within the Zeboim excavation site is a young girl that goes by the name of Emerlda. A creature made of nanomachines, Emerelda represents one of the peak scientific achievements of the Zeboim civilization and also has a strange connection to Fei.
Stone shows up right after the party awaken Emerelda in order to return her to Solaris under order of a high-ranking Solaris official known as Karellen. In order to steal the girl away without interruption, Stone enlists the help of two of the remaining Elements, who in turn do battle with Fei and his allies. After defeating the two Elements, Fei and his allies catch up to Stone, and the confrontation sees Fei once again transform into the diabolical and destructive Id. Suddenly, the mysterious Wiseman shows up and gives the party a chance to escape and pursue Stone while he keeps Id occupied.
The party eventually catches up to Stone and defeats him, and Fei regains consciousness outside the Zeboim ruins. Needing help to infiltrate Solaris, the party climbs the mysterious Tower of Babel in order to reach the hidden city of Shevat and subsequently meet Maria Balthasar and Shevat’s Queen Zephyr. During the party’s stay in the city they come under attack by Solaris, but together with Maria the party defeats the Solaris forces and hatches a plan to infiltrate the floating city and break its control over the surface-dwellers.
Infiltrating Solaris
The party’s time in Shevat reveals that Solaris is protected by a shield generator that creates a dimensional distortion around the city rendering it invisible to the naked eye. In order to successfully infliltrate Solaris, Fei and his allies need to destroy three dimensional Gates that will reveal Solaris’ location and create a brief opportunity to break through and invade the floating nation-state. At the same time, Shakan invades Nisan in hopes of kidnapping Margie once again but Bart uses the legendary Fatima Jasper to uncover his ancestors’ Omnigear. Using the Omnigear Andvari, Bart defeats Shakan and ascends the throne of Aveh as its rightful ruler.
Not long after, the party successfully destroys the last of the Gates and uses Maria’s massive Gear Seibzhen (the seventeenth incarnation of her father’s experiments to implement human consciousness into a Gear) to inflitrate Solaris. After arriving in the city, the party quickly realizes that Solaris only functions off of the harvesting of resources and slave labor from the surface, solidifying why the mysterious nation acts from the shadows to manipulate the planet’s nations and inhibit the abilities of surface-dwellers.
Further, the party learns that Citan is actually a spy for Emperor Cain. Cain is the ruler of Solaris but the nation’s goals have long been directed by the Gazel Ministry, who wish to eliminate Cain and resurrect Deus in order to achieve eternal life. With that directive, the Ministry enlists the help of Solaris’ top scientist Krelian, who needs Elly in order to resurrect Deus as she carries the Urobolus gene of the mysterious purple-haired female from the game’s opening.
Locating the Anima Relics
Following these revelations, Fei, Elly, and her parents are all held prisoner by the Gazel Ministry, but Citan releases them in secret so that they might escape and take down Solaris once and for all. While making their escape, former ally Hammer (under threats from Krelian) accidentally shoots and kills Elly’s mother. Grahf and Miang then show up and try to awaken Elly’s true persona, but instead awaken Fei as Id. Id then subsequently unleashes a wave of destruction destroying Solaris. To prevent Id from performing a similar act in the future, Queen Zephyr suggests carbon-freezing Fei, but Elly objects and leaves Shevat with Fei.
Unfortunately, Ramsus gives chase and Fei and Elly barely escape with their lives. After being shot down, the two receive help and rescue from none other than Taura Melchior — one of Shevat’s three sages and mentor to Krelian. Here, Fei learns that he and Elly have continually been reborn as figments of the Wave Existence residing with Deus, with both Grahf and Id being incarnations of Fei’s psyche throughout the millennia. At the same time, Citan and the rest of the party destroy the Limiter preventing mankind’s ascension to being equals with the citizens of Shevat, but Krelian intercepts the effect and instead activates the Soylent System, transforming millions of humans into Wels to be absorbed by Deus.
With Fei finally understanding the truth of his multiple lives and strange memories, he and Elly rejoin the party and continue to search for the Anima Relics necessary to power up their gears and make them capable of challenging Krelian, Ramsus, and Miang. Meanwhile, Krelian convinces Ramsus (who knows that he is now a failed “contact” for the Wave Existence and nothing more than an inferior genetic clone of Fei) to assassinate Emperor Cain.
Resurrection of The Eldridge and Construction of Merkava
Following Emperor Cain’s death, no one remains to prevent the Gazel Ministry from activating their plan to resurrect Deus, and the group is able to activate The Eldridge and raise up the vessel from beneath the ocean floor. After accomplishing this, Krelian no longer needs the Gazel Ministry’s help, and he wipes their data banks, effectively killing them. Krelian attempts to resurrect Deus and Fei shows up to stop him, but Grahf appears and holds Fei captive. Fearing for Fei’s life, Elly intervenes but winds up getting captures in Fei’s stead.
Krelian begins construction of Merkava, the “ark of god”, as a way to enter Deus’ core and reach the Wave Existence, effectively communicating with the true divine presence. Fearing what might come about as a result of Krelian’s ascension to godhood, Ramsus intervenes and kills both Krelian and Miang, but Krelian’s merging with Deus results in his being nigh-immortal. At the same time, Miang uses Elly’s possession of the Urobolus gene to assume Elly’s physical body, and Fei once again transforms into Id in a blind rage.
As Deus begins assimilating all the Wels created by the Soylent System, Citan and the rest of the party intercept Fei (as Id) on his way to attempt contact with the Wave Existence. Unexpectedly, the Wave Existence reaches out to Fei and (with his father Khan’s — aka, Wiseman’s — help) the hero is able to resolve all of his split personalities. The divine presence within the Wave Existence then transforms Fei’s gear Weltall into the ultimate Omnigear — Xenogears.
Confronting Krellan and Urobolus
During this pivotal moment in the story, Fei learns that he is actually the reincarnation of one of the humans aboard The Eldridge, Abel. Having made contact with Deus’ power source, the Zohar, Abel is able to be reborn following The Eldridge‘s crash landing. His desire to receive comfort from his mother also results in the Wave Existence (acting through the Zohar and the advanced supercomputer Kadomony) creating Miang, who subsequently becomes the mother of all humanity and the carrier of the Urobolus gene. Carrying a directive to resurrect the being responsible for giving her life, Miang split into two entities, with her job being finding the means of resurrecting Deus and the split, Elly, acting as the nurturing mother of mankind.
Fei and Elly’s various reincarnations throughout history eventually learn the truth behind their origin only to suffer defeat at the hands of the Gazel Ministry, but with Deus now resurrected and the Gazel Ministry gone Fei and Elly realize they have a rare chance to prevent the downfall of civilization. The night before the final assault on Merkava, Fei and Elly consummate their love for one another and vow to fight without turning back. The party successfully invades Merkava and destroys Deus, but as a result the Zohar modifier is no more. All Gears become inactive, and Fei and Elly find themselves transported into a strange dimension.
Destroying Deus and freeing the Wave Existence from the Zohar both saves and dooms humanity, as the energy emitted from the Wave Existence threatens to destroy the planet. Elly wishes to sacrifice herself once more to save mankind, and Fei challenges both Krelian and the Urobolus gene to return Elly to herself and break mankind free from the shackles of the demiurge that Deus represents.
Ending
Fei successfully defeats the Urobolus gene, resulting in Krelian having a change of heart and realizing the error of his ways. Krelian releases Elly, and Elly informs Fei that it was Krelian’s love of Sophia and sadness over her death that resulted in his wanting to eliminate the prospect of loss by reverting humankind to a state of pure energy via contact with the Wave Existence. Worrying that there’s no return back to their home planet, Fei resolves to sacrifice himself to save Elly but is stopped by Krelian.
Krelian acknowledges that Deus, the false god or “demiurge”, is no more and that humankind can now achieve true greatness by assuming control of both their planet and their collective destiny. Fei and Elly plead for Krelian to come with them, but he decides to instead enter the dimension where the Wave Existence is from in hopes of making true contact with the divine.
Fei and Elly return to the planet in the cockpit of Xenogears, seeing that the entire party is awaiting their return on a cliffside. Successful in both preventing humankind’s destruction and breaking free from the shackles of servitude to the demiurge, the party expresses joy and Fei and Elly share a loving embrace.