http://kotaku.com/the-real-story-behind-xenogears-unfinished-disc-2-1796151112
"As far as I can tell, however, there’s been no official explanation since Xenogears was released 19 years ago. So while interviewing Takahashi during E3 in Los Angeles today about his new game, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (more on that soon), I had to slip in a question about that urban legend. Xenogears is one of my favorite games, I said, but what happened to that second disc?"
"“Honestly speaking, what had happened is Xenogears as a project was staffed pretty much entirely out of new staff members, young staff members,” said Takahashi, speaking through a translator. “Back then, we had the direction of, ‘All projects take two years and that’s when we need to get it done.’ So on top of developing the game, we had to nurture and teach and grow these younger employees. Things like 3D were extremely new, which led to some delays in the schedule. It just wasn’t possible to get everything done.”"
As it became clear that Takahashi and team weren’t going to hit their deadlines, Square’s higher-ups suggested that they just end the game after the first disc, when Fei and his team escape from Solaris.
"“It was a rough way to end it, and I felt like if we do that, then the players will not be satisfied,” Takahashi told me. “So we had a proposal—I proposed that if we do disc 2 in this way that it turned out to be, we can finish the game with the current number of staff and the current time allotted for the schedule and the remaining budget we have.”"
Very interesting! Too bad Square was so strict on release times back then, but maybe they should borrow a more lenient version of that policy today.
