Music of Xenoblade Chronicles 3

The music of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 consists of an unknown number of tracks, several of which have been officially released as of June 2022. Yasunori Mitsuda, ACE, Manami Kiyota, Kenji Hiramatsu, Mariam Abounnasr, and Yutaka Kunigo all contributed to composing for the game.

Significance in-universe
Music is relevant to the game's story and lore. The main characters Noah and Mio are off-seers, people who mourn those who died in battle, and both play a flute as a part of this practise. According to Mitsuda, the flute motif is meaningful to the music as a whole, and the instrument features prominently in the game's music, including situations where the instrument is less commonly used in equivalent music in other media (e.g. battle themes).

The countries of Keves and Agnus each have their own standard tunes learnt by all off-seers in training. However, the music played by off-seers is somewhat variable beyond this in practice. While it exclusively uses the flute, different off-seers often write their own variations on these melodies, and some (such as Crys) even compose their own.

Functionality in-game
The music of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 can be roughly categorised into battle, area, cutscene, and menu themes. As is typical for games in the series, most areas have separate area music that plays during the day and the night (although the two are typically remixes of one another), in which the day theme is more energetic and the night theme more subdued. On average, the area themes are more subdued than in the music of previous games in the series (especially among those that play exclusively during the day).

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 makes occasional use of dynamic music shifting in gameplay. In some story events, the battle music is a louder, bolder remix of the area music and is in the same tempo with an identical structure. When combat initiates, the area music immediately and smoothly transitions to the equivalent section of the battle music, and transitions back again once combat has concluded. Dynamic music shifting is also used frequently within combat: the theme replaces the enemy's ordinary battle music during s.

Moreover, several battle themes (e.g. You Will Know Our Names - Finale) consist of three loops: one which plays at the start of the battle, one which is transitioned into midway through the battle, and one which is transitioned into when the battle has almost concluded. (The second and third loops are sometimes unofficially referred to as the 'Climax' and 'Pre-end' sections respectively, after the naming scheme of the tracks as stored in the game's files.) Unlike the aforementioned joint area-to-battle music transitions, in these cases the transition does not take place immediately upon reaching the trigger for changing the music; instead, the previous section continues until one of several specific points in the loop is reached in order to make the transition musically smooth. This means that certain sections of the track may not be heard in one particular battle. For example, if a drops to critically low HP by the time the first transition point of You Will Know Our Names - Finale is reached, the track will transition to the pre-end section, skipping the climax section entirely.

When off-seeing in gameplay, the area music is momentarily replaced with one of several excerpts from the flute lines of A Life Sent On, corresponding to the music being played in-universe.

Soundtrack
According to a tweet by Yasunori Mitsuda on the 30 July 2022, a soundtrack is planned for an unknown release date. (As of the time of the tweet, it has no announced title.)

Website BGM
The official Japanese website for Xenoblade 3 features a button labelled 'BGM' (an acronym commonly used in Japanese to signify 'background music') which, when pressed, plays music. Originally, it played A Life Sent On; after the Xenoblade 3 direct on 22 June 2022, The Weight of Life and Keves Battle were also added as options.

Xenoblade Notes
Xenoblade Note vol. 5, a blog post on Nintendo's Japanese website, included links to several unlisted YouTube videos of the game's music: A Life Sent On, The Weight of Life, and Keves Battle. Xenoblade Note vol. 8, posted later, featured an equivalent link to.

Twitter posts
The XenobladeJP twitter account, as well as the accounts of various regional Nintendo departments, posted various tracks from the game leading up to the game's release. These included the three in Xenoblade Note vol. 5 and 8, as well as You Will Know Our Names - Finale, A Formidable Enemy, and A Step Away.