Most of the time, I’m pretty oblivious to game name trends. It’s normally only when someone points out to me that all AAA games have names like ‘Chronicle of Shadows: Rebirth’, that I start to see that formula used everywhere — like when you find a trendy new pair of shoes that you swear you’ve never seen before, only to wear them out of the shop and see every other person styling them.
The way it’s usually pointed out to me is when Nintendo releases a game that rehashes a title format we’ve seen hundreds of times before. Most recently, it was the rise of the unnecessary exclamation mark, when Princess Peach: Showtime! and WarioWare: Move It! made me question whether I should be shouting their final word each time I said them. This year, it’s X games.
And no, I’m not talking about the high-octane motorbike stunt riders, long may their games continue. I’m talking about ‘Forgettable x Title’, ‘Franchise x Franchise’ and, dare I say it, ‘Verb x Verb’.
I’m looking at you, Drag x Drive. You have opened my eyes to the wonderful world of the meaningless ‘X’, and now I can’t stop seeing it everywhere. It’s reached the point where the humble ‘X’ can mean anything, nothing, or something in between, and I’m left wondering: why the heck are we sticking them in every game title like they’re a piece of punctuation?
‘But Jim, aren’t there more important things to be talking about? Hollow Knight: Silksong was finally given a release date this week, you know?’ Yes, I do know, but I have to get this off my chest because I fear we’re reaching a point where, if Team Cherry were to release its moody Metroidvania series today, it would have been called ‘Hollow X Knight’ and nobody would have batted an eye. That’s insane!
Let’s look at some X games that have either landed a release, announcement, or demo in the last month alone. We’ve got Drag x Drive, where the ‘X’ is pronounced “and”. Daemon x Machina: Titanic Scion, opts for the “eks” pronunciation. Indie World alumni BALL x PIT has an ‘X’ in the middle, and the game is pronounced “Ball Pit”, for crying out loud.
We can go further back and see it infiltrating our brains throughout recent years. We’ve got Sonic X Shadow Generations (“eks”), anime adaptations where the ‘X’ is completely bypassed when said out loud, regardless of how many there are (I’m looking at you, Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact), Xenoblade Chronicles X (“eks” or “cross”, depending on your region), and don’t even get me started on the “ten”https://www.nintendolife.com/”eks” discussions that come with the Final Fantasy X series’ blending of Roman and Arabic numerals. That’s too many ways of saying “X”! [Wait until you watch Hunter x Hunter and see the episode titles, Jim… Ed.~]
And this is where we hit the crux of my issue — my Big x Problem, if you will — I have no idea how to say game titles out loud any more. The addition of a middle X has left me fumbling through conversations as if I’ve never heard of a video game before. I can’t deal with the embarrassment of accidentally recommending “Xenoblade Chronicles And: Definitive Edition” to a friend again. How was I supposed to know??
Now look, I can put my sensible hat on for a second and recognise that ‘X’ is a fundamentally cool and sexy letter. Marketing a game to stand out from the crowd sounds like no easy business, and if the prospect of making your title look like a cool multiplication sum is the best route to get to the top, then so be it.
All that I ask is that we settle on one universal sound that the ‘X’ represents. The erg-errgh ‘X’ sound from Family Fortunes/Feud feels a little over the top, so I’ll settle on the classic “eks” for now. Either that or I’ll have to keep gesturing with my forearms across my body as if I’m learning a TikTok dance every time I want to discuss the latest Sonic and Shadow joint.
Are you getting tired of Xs too, or do I need something else to worry about? Let me know in the comments.
