Designed and built by the famed robotics researcher Dr. Thomas Light in 20XX, Mega Man X was designed as the first in a new generation of robots who could think, feeel, worry and make decisions that would allow them to act of their own accord. Testing the reliability of X's internal systems would take more time than the already long-lived doctor had left, however, and so X was buried in a capsule for that duration.

As a more advanced successor to the original Mega Man, X's design is more detailed and mature-looking. He shares his predecessor's predominantly blue and cyan color palette, but is taller and appears to be in his early teens (likely fourteen or fifteen years old, given his initial AI setting and height, whereas the old Mega Man was about ten years old). His upper torso is covered by a segmented chest plate with shoulder pads. His joints, such as his knees and wrists, have small black tabs on them. His helmet has cyan ridges atop it and above the visor, and a red lens sits on his forehead. The "ears" of his helmet and barrel of his X-Buster are black around the edges with red lenses within.

True to his destiny, X is a very human robot. He is a kind soul who wishes for nothing more than peace between humans and Reploids. However, he holds no tolerance for injustice and takes his quest for peace very seriously. In times of conflict, he is a hot-blooded warrior who is compelled by his emotions over logic. He always stands up for what he believes is right and fights to protect the innocent. Even so, X remains sympathetic for the Mavericks he fights and often tries to reason with them before it comes to violence. Unfortunately, X's emotional commitment also makes him easily frustrated when things go awry, and he rarely understands the extreme motives of his Maverick opponents.