Two years after the Nintendo Switch remake and expansion of Xenoblade Chronicles and 5 years after Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the next installment of the series has been announced during the most recent Nintendo Direct. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is coming to the Nintendo Switch in September 2022, and, according to the trailer, will “tie together the futures of the worlds depicted in Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2.”
Based on the trailer, the gameplay will be similar to its predecessors—an open-world adventure with beautiful, sweeping environments populated by giant monsters. Unlike Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the people of the world seem to match the races of the original Xenoblade Chronicles, with grey-skinned, machine-armored people similar to the Machina and head winged people similar to the High Entia being featured prominently in the trailer. However, it is not explicitly stated if the races are the same, or if they are some sort of eventual descendant (as the game is advertised as the future to the timeline). The Nopon also make a return, as they did in Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
The Nintendo website gives more information about the game’s world and characters. The world is called Aionios, where 2 nations are constantly at war: Keves, a nation built around mechanical technology, and Agnus, a nation built around ether, or magic. The game is centered around 6 characters, all soldiers from these two nations.
The main protagonist is Noah, a boy from Keves who is also an “off-seer” and can presumably see the future. He wields a sword that looks like a more mechanized version of the Monado, the main sword wielded by the seer Shulk in the original game. The other protagonist is Mio, another “off-seer” from Agnus. They are joined by Lanz, a Machina-like boy from Keves; Eunie, a High Entia-like girl from Keves, Taion, a human tactician from Agnus, and Sena, a human soldier from Agnus.
In an introduction to the game from the Executive Director Tetsuya Takahashi, he shares that the key visual of the game “features a broken great sword of Mechonis and the body of the Urayan Titan with a big gaping hole.” The Mechonis is one of the 2 great titans that served as continents in the original Xenoblade Chronicles, while Uraya is one of the many monstrous titans found in Alrest, the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. How exactly the third installment will tie into these two games is yet to be known.”
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is currently slated to come to the Nintendo Switch in September of this year.
