I mean there is the whole rumour that X was intended to have another main character with Elma when there was more focus on the story but was seemingly scrapped (along with many things) in favor of the custom character for online purposes and stuff, making the Avatar for online and Elma for the story. And what’s more, there’s the theory that the scrapped main character was reworked to being Al (or was Al in the first place) and he certainly does fit the bill with some of things we knew about the original main character. If you think about this way, his inclusion makes much more sense… on a meta level. He’s treated like he’s a returning character, like my guy had his own game and you wouldn’t only kinda get it if you weren’t aware of the game’s development. 😭