I never see anyone talking about this one.  The game takes place before Jin was bad and before the Aegis war 500 years prior.  It also seems to focus around Mythra and Lora.

So the game was originally a DLC expansion, now it is a stand alone game (got mine physical copy pre ordered on Amazon) priced at 40 bucks.  So what I ask is this, are you excited for it and how much content will it have at price?  If you payed for the expansion pass at 30 bucks, the digital version of the game is included in that as well since it was originally a DLC that ended up being a prequel game.

I for one am very excited about this one and I feel it will have more content than most 60 dollar games.  I think another 100 hours could be at hand here due to when the game takes place.  Taking place on the surface before the cloud see formed and people had to live on titans basically means this is an entirely new world to explore, not just another titan.  The Sky is really the limit here and I think the only reason they are not making it cost 60 bucks is due to reusable assets from the base game.

So what do you think, will this be an overpriced expansion or are we looking at our next Xenoblade game here?  I would not be surprised if it turned out to be the latter.

Whoa there! What's this about it taking place before the cloud sea forms? I'm pretty damned stoked for it anyway, but if what you say is true, then my hype levels went over 9000! Xenoblade 2 is already one of my favorite games ever, and I've been looking forward to going back and playing it with all the DLC, and Patches Installed.

Edit: Uh, no it's not before the cloud sea formed. You can see the cloud see in this screenshot provided by Nintendo. 

Still hyped for this DLC though. 

I am looking forward to it; I enjoyed the base game, and the fact that an easy mode has been added since my playthrough means that hopefully one of my biggest issues with the base game, the frustrating difficulty spikes, should no longer be a problem. A couple of the changes like the revamped battle system and enemies dropping whole aux cores instead of having to craft them are very welcome too.

I just really, really hope that the "physical release" is actually the expansion on a cartridge, not just a glorified download code. I am running out of hard drive space and don't wanna buy a micro SD card just yet, waiting for prices to come down and bigger ones to come out.

http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Xenoblade_Chronicles_2:_Torna_~_The_Golden_Country"

"Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country is a direct prequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, taking place during the Aegis War approximately 500 years prior. It will focus mainly on Lora."

I jumped the gun.  I for some reason thought that "before the Aegis war" implied pre cloud sea.  Bit rusty on the lore but I remember now (fixed it in OP).  Still a stand alone release 500 years before the base game is promising.  A lot can change in 500 years.

Also it seems the battle system in this one will allow you to take control of both blades and drivers as opposed to just the drivers.

If I understand correctly, the game will be on cart and it will come with a download code for the rest of the expansion pass.  I would be disappointed if it is not on a cart as well, but it is implied that it will be.

It would make sense because the expansion pass on the eshop is 30 bucks, but the physical version is 40.

I have over 300 hours in XBC2. They just added more content to today. I finally had all the Rare Blades. I'm going to have pull myself away from Octopath Traveler at some point and try to snap the new blade before the Torna DLC.

If this is a game on a cart, then Torna: The Golden Country is to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as Uncharted Lost Legacy is to Uncharted 4. In other words, that would make it its own standalone game. It would also mean that Smash Ultimate won't be the only 1st party Nintendo game to get above 79  on Metacritic/Opencritic this year. And that would make me very very happy!

I also hope they have ironed out some of XB2's technical rough edges. It was a good game but it did feel a little rushed, with a very poor resolution when portable, some framerate dips that DF put down to a memory leak, and some mild glitches the kind of which you don't usually see in a first party Nintendo game. 

Could be another reason it is a stand alone game now.  New mechanics and it might have been easier to recode some of the bugs out on a fresh slate.

I'm not sure if that would have been their focus. If they haven't been able to fix some of the resolution issues in portable mode and such, then they might not have had that issue as a focus during Torna's development. Though apparently they've done a lot to smooth the edges of the game throughout its updates and all.