Was watching his Stream but only on and off so I missed the story parts, exploring the world with the Skell is a spectacular sight.

Seems like people have started finishing the story and saying good things about it. No spoilers that I've seen ofcourse but it has an awful lot of interesting plot twists like the original, which is good!

Also apparently the max level is 60, and there's talking of the ending being a massive cliffhanger...could this suggest a "Xenosaga" esque deal? I really hope that isn't the case.

Read the comments of the Xeno creator on the history of the series and it'll make sense why the would be a cliffhanger. The whole Xeno series was created to be a 6 part series like the original Star Wars, Xenogears was part 5 apparently, then the who fall out with Square happened but he still had the rights to any other part of the series provided he made changes to it that it wouldn't infringe on Xenogears.

Xenosaga was created and is apparently part 2 of his series, how ever Namco stepped and decided they wanted to write the whole saga instead of Monolith leading to the second road bump the series ran into. Xenoblade was the turning point as he was expecting Nintendo to step in and cut content like Square and Namco did instead Nintendo told him the opposite and to take his time and only release it when he was happy with the final product.

Expect cliffhangers as apparently he has a connected universe in mind even if the cast and setting change.

But how is that cliffhanger? I don't want to spent 100 or more hours on a game only to find a "to be continued" at the end of it.

So, does the main story in XCX have an end, with the next Xeno title having only some loose ties in XCX like the ones this title has with the first Xenoblade or does this game without closing the story of Elma and the rest on planet Mira?

It could be a sort of middle ground akin to Star Wars IV.  Basically, a self contained adventure to achieve one major goal, but at the end there's obviously more that must be done.  So open to obvious continuation but still complete.  That's what I am expecting.

I wouldn't mind that kind of ending, as long as the "bad guy" is defeated in this game.

this game
looks
fucking
amazing
oh my god, look at those scenarios, Mira is freaking gorgeous

Wyrdness said:

your screenshots dont do the game justice...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzH7nWI2Ewk