Music of Xenoblade Chronicles 3

The music of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 consists of approximately 140 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. In addition, one song by Yoko Shimomura is also reused.

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 often somewhat more energetic and the night theme more subdued.

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.

Musical style
In part due to the large number of composers contributing to the game's music, there are few overarching trends in musical aspects. Much of the music was composed with live instrumentation; relatively few tracks noticeably use sampled instruments (although some, such as the pause menu music, are entirely sampled). Various tracks borrow from substantially different musical genres such as jazz, although this tends to be limited to individual tracks as opposed to significant sections of the soundtrack as a whole.

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).

Use of motifs
Day and night area themes are remixes of one another, and some battle themes are remixes of associated area themes; see. Beyond this, four main melodic lines appear throughout Xenoblade Chronicles 3's music (especially the cutscene music, although sometimes in area, battle and menu music) as motifs. Several other melodies appear in multiple tracks, albeit to a lesser extent than the above four. For example, a motif based upon Drifting Soul from the music of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 plays in tracks associated with Nia.
 * The two flute lines used in A Life Sent On, the Kevesi off-seeing tune and the Agnian off-seeing tune, are each used (independently, although often together) in a multitude of tracks. For example, the music of the title screen is based upon the Kevesi off-seeing tune.
 * The main melody of the cutscene in which Noah and Mio interlink for the first time uses a motif representing Ouroboros. This motif also appears in tracks such as the area themes of the City.
 * Another motif, used in the Origin area themes and other tracks, represents Moebius. The melody has substantial similarities to that of the Ouroboros motif, especially with regards to rhythm and melodic contour.

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. In the weeks leading up to the game's release, You Will Know Our Names - Finale,, , A Step Away, and A Formidable Enemy were added to the list of playable tracks.

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. The tracks featured were the same tracks as the ones playable on the official website.

Trivia

 * Xenoblade Chronicles 3's music was nominated at The Game Awards in 2022 for Best Score & Music.