I wrote the first version of this piece in 2017, a month before Xenoblade Chronicles 2 launched on the Switch. At the time, all I had to go on were trailers and screenshots — and the one thing I couldn't get out of my head was Pyra's design. Not her moveset, not the blade system, not the story premise. Her outfit. Eight years later, I've beaten the game twice, played through the Torna expansion, watched Pyra join Smash Bros, and argued about this topic more times than I can count. My take has gotten more complicated. The reaction hasn't.
This is an essay about character design, player perception, and what Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is actually doing with its most controversial character. Updated for 2026 with the benefit of hindsight and two complete playthroughs.
First Impressions: The Trailer That Launched a Thousand Arguments
When Nintendo dropped the first extended gameplay trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the JRPG community split into two camps within hours. Camp one: "This looks like an incredible open-world RPG with a deep blade system and gorgeous Titan environments." Camp two: "Why does the main girl look like that?" I was firmly in camp two. Not because I had a moral objection — I've played enough JRPGs to know that provocative character design isn't new — but because the contrast between Pyra's innocent face and her outfit was so stark that it felt like the design was daring you to bring it up.
Pyra's illustrator, Masatsugu Saito, came from anime production — his design of Angela Balzac in Expelled from Paradise uses a nearly identical visual language. Futuristic fighting girl, skin-tight suit, LED lighting accents, youthful face on a body built for fan art. With Pyra, he took that template and cranked every dial to maximum. The red armor plating with green LED vectors tracing an 'X' pattern. The shorts that aren't really shorts. The two suspenders that serve zero functional purpose except to frame her torso. Every element is intentional. Every element is designed to draw your eye exactly where the designer wants it.
What Pyra Actually Is in the Game
Here's where it gets interesting. Pyra is a Blade — a synthetic being manifested from a crystal core, designed to be bonded with a Driver who wields her power in combat. She is, in the literal game mechanics sense, an object. Something to be equipped and utilized. The game knows this. The narrative tension of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is built around the question of whether Blades — beings created to serve — have autonomy, feelings, and rights of their own. Pyra's objectified design isn't an accident or a failure of taste. It's the visual thesis of the game's central conflict.
That doesn't make it comfortable. But it makes it coherent.
In battle, Pyra channels fire-element enhancements through Rex, enabling Blade Specials, elemental combos, and fusion attacks. She stands on the sidelines — visible but not directly controllable — which reinforces her role as both partner and weapon. The game constantly asks whether that distinction matters. Rex treats her as a person. The world treats her as a tool. The player literally equips her from a menu. The dissonance is the point.
Pyra's Journey to Elysium
Strip away the design discourse and Pyra's actual story is genuinely compelling. She's searching for Elysium — a paradise at the top of the World Tree — and her reasons for wanting to get there become the emotional core of the game. I won't spoil the reveals, but I'll say this: the game earns its dramatic moments. The relationship between Pyra, her alter ego Mythra, and Rex develops from awkward to affecting over the course of eighty hours. When the full picture of who Pyra is and what she's been carrying finally clicks into place, it recontextualizes everything — including her visual design.
Playing through the Torna: The Golden Country expansion deepened my appreciation further. Seeing Mythra in a different context, before the events of XC2, adds layers to both characters that the main game only hints at. The relationship dynamic between Driver and Blade is explored with more nuance in Torna than anywhere else in the franchise.
The Censorship Question — Eight Years Later
In 2017, I worried that Nintendo's Treehouse localization team would tone down Pyra's design, given their track record with Fire Emblem Fates. They didn't. The game shipped worldwide with Pyra intact, and honestly, the lack of censorship was the right call — not because her design is beyond criticism, but because altering a central character's appearance in localization creates worse problems than the design itself.
The more interesting development happened in 2021 when Pyra and Mythra joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Mythra received an alternate costume with tights covering her legs — a change that was simultaneously mocked and praised. It was a pragmatic solution: Smash is rated E for Everyone, and Mythra's original costume pushed limits for that rating. Pyra's design stayed untouched, which tells you something about how Nintendo internally evaluated the two characters' visual boundaries.
In 2026, with the Switch library fully mature and a next-gen Nintendo on the horizon, Xenoblade Chronicles 2's art style has settled into its place in the franchise. It's the horny one. Fans know it, Monolith Soft knows it, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 quietly dialed the character designs back toward something less polarizing. That's probably for the best — but it also means XC2 occupies a unique position in the JRPG world as a genuinely excellent game that you might be embarrassed to play on public transit.
The Fan Art Problem (And Why It's Not Really a Problem)
Pyra generated one of the largest waves of JRPG fan art since the Evangelion plug suit era, and for exactly the same reasons. Futuristic fighting girl plus revealing costume plus emotional storyline equals infinite artistic inspiration. I stopped keeping a folder of my favorite Pyra fan art around the time it exceeded three hundred images, which says something about either the character's design success or my own priorities. Probably both.
What I find more interesting now than the fan art itself is how Pyra's popularity compares to Rex's complete absence from the conversation. Rex is the protagonist. He drives the story. He has the emotional arc. And yet — in merchandise, in fan creation, in cosplay, in Smash Bros. hype — Pyra and Mythra are the faces of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The game's marketing leaned into this deliberately. Rex was always meant to be a self-insert, a camera through which the player experiences Pyra. Whether that's clever design or lazy characterization depends on how much you enjoyed using that camera.
My Verdict After Two Playthroughs
I've spent over a hundred and sixty hours with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 across two playthroughs and the Torna DLC. My verdict on Pyra's design hasn't changed — it's excessive, it's intentional, and it works in ways that most critics don't give the game credit for. The visual contrast between her innocent demeanor and her combat-ready appearance mirrors the game's core tension between Blades as people and Blades as weapons. You're supposed to feel the dissonance. The game is built on it.
Is XC2 a great game despite Pyra's design, or partly because of it? After eight years, I still don't have a clean answer. What I do know is that the game's combat is excellent, the world of Alrest is one of the most imaginative settings in any JRPG, the story earns its emotional beats, and Pyra is a more interesting character than her costume suggests. Play it. Form your own opinion. Just maybe don't play it on a crowded train.
All images are official screenshots from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Xenoblade Chronicles is a trademark of Nintendo / Monolith Soft. Originally published October 2017. Updated March 2026.