Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a role-playing video game developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo. It was first revealed during the February 9th, 2022 Nintendo Direct and it was released on 29 July 2022 for the Nintendo Switch.

According to, the game is said to "tie together the futures of the worlds of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2".

Development
Developers Monolith Soft returned to develop Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the sixth game in the Xenoblade series. The concept for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 began with the visual present on the box art, of the Urayan Titan being pierced by the sword of the Mechonis. This idea took shape during the development of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, seeing the worlds from the two games come together in a state of war. The game was pitched to Nintendo in May 2018 alongside Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, and began development in August 2018. Several key staff members from previous Xenoblade games returned, including series creator Tetsuya Takahashi as executive director and writer, character designer Masatsugu Saito, and artist Koichi Mugitani.

The game was officially revealed in a February 2022 Nintendo Direct, with a slated release window of September 2022. This release was later moved up to July 29, 2022.

Music
The game's soundtrack was written by previous Xenoblade series composers Yasunori Mitsuda, Manami Kiyota, ACE (Tomori Kudo and Hiroyo "CHiCO" Yamanaka), and Kenji Hiramatsu, alongside Mariam Abounnasr, who previously arranged tracks for Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Music plays a key role in this game, owing to Noah and Mio's roles as off-seers. In order to create this unique sound, Monolith Soft commissioned custom recreations of Noah and Mio's flutes.

Plot
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 takes place in the world of Aionios, where the nations of Keves and Agnus are in constant war with one another. Residents of these nations live in various Colonies, and are soldiers with a life span of ten years, or "terms", bound to fight to fill their Colony's Flame Clock with the life energy of their enemies. Protagonist Noah is a Kevesi off-seer, a flute player who sends off the dead, who along with his fellow soldiers Lanz and Eunie are sent on a mysterious mission. On this mission, they encounter the Agnian squad of off-seer Mio, along with Taion and Sena, as well as a mysterious man named Guernica Vandham who tells them to find the "true enemy." Guernica is attacked and mortally wounded by a powerful being known only as D, and activates the Ouroboros Stone he was guarding to imbue the six soldiers with the powers of Ouroboros. As he dies, he tells the party to head for the "City" at Swordmarch, sparking them on an adventure to find out the true nature of the world they live in and the war they've been fighting.

Gameplay
Similar to previous games in the series, Xenoblade is an action role-playing game with a large open world, Aionios, to explore. This world is the largest in the series thus far, being over five times larger than the explorable world in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The player is able to explore this world on foot, use various traversal skills to access areas and items, and fast travel between different discovered Landmarks. In addition to the main story, players can complete a wide variety of side quests, including Hero Quests that unlock new party members.

Combat
Combat is broadly similar to previous games in the Xenoblade series. It is real-time rather than turn-based, and the player controls only a subset of the active party members, with others being controlled by AI. Doing nothing will result in the player-controlled characters ing regularly. A selection of more powerful attacks, or Arts, can also be used at will, each attack with its own cooldown. These cooldowns vary between classes, with Keves-based arts being recharged overtime similar to Arts in Xenoblade 1, and Agnus-based arts being recharged by auto-attacking similar to Xenoblade 2 arts. Arts may be more effective when used under certain conditions, e.g. dealing more damage when the enemy is hit from behind. Some arts can also be comboed into for special effects: the Break/Topple/Daze/Burst series will drop items and removed enemy's Enraged status if present, while the Break/Topple/Launch/Smash series will do great damage. There is also a "quick move" feature, allowing characters to move for positional arts.

The 6 main playable characters are divided into three pairs, each pair being connected via an interlink: When certain conditions are met in battle, each of these pairs may (independently) combine into Ouroboros form. This changes the set of attacks available to them.
 * Noah and Mio
 * Eunie and Taion
 * Lanz and Sena

In contrast with the combat of earlier games in the series, 6 playable characters may be active simultaneously, along with an additional AI-controlled party member known as a Hero. These party members can be customized into a variety of different classes, allowing different arts and skills to be available. Each class comes in one of three different roles, Attacker, Defender, and Healer. Party members can also equip Master Arts and Master Skills from other classes they have leveled up, as well as Accessories and Gems to increase their stats.

The Chain Attack mechanic also returns in this game. As party members successfully perform attacks, the Chain Attack gauge will fill; once activated, the player can choose one of three Orders affecting damage. Each move then chosen adds Tactical Points (TP) to the gauge, based on a character's class and role; by achieving 100 TP or more, the Order will be activated, doing massive damage. This will continue as long as the Chain Attack gauge is not empty.

General Fixes

 * Added function to receive Expansion Pass item(s).
 * Downloading the Expansion Pass will add an “Expansion Pass” selection to the Main Menu, where the item(s) can be received.
 * The Main Menu can be opened during gameplay by pressing the X Button.
 * (Added August 4, 2022) There was an error in the conditions under which the "Expansion Pass" item is added to the software. The "Expansion Pass" item will be added when the software is updated, even if the Expansion Pass has not been downloaded.
 * Fixes introduced to ensure a better gameplay experience.

Bug Fixes

 * Altered Perilwing Ryuho’s behavior pattern; made it undefeatable if player is in area that cannot be reached in the main scenario’s intended progression.
 * Fixed a bug in Teach's Ascension quest, "Shadow of Enmity", where the first battle sometimes did not end.
 * Fixed an issue where the battle with the Mysterious Raider in the "Severed Connection" quest sometimes did not end.
 * Fixed a problem in which the requested items "Gogol Vuaga" and "Gogol Dalm" for some Collectopedia Cards were not available.
 * Fixed a problem in which various effects were not occurring correctly for dishes other than "Baked Spongy Spud", and "Sunny-Style Fish Pie".
 * Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the s button to disappear and not be able to be pressed during certain procedures. If this problem has already occurred, it will be fixed by loading the saved data after updating the software.
 * Fixed a problem in which the text "Verkaufen" in the store menu was overlapping the adjacent text when Language Settings was set to German.
 * In addition, several other issues have been fixed to make the game more enjoyable to play.

Unlisted changes

 * Fixed a rogue vertex on Taion's Strategos outfit that was stabbing him in the chin.
 * The fix to the other Gogol items resulted in Gogol Olipple becoming unobtainable.

Game Spec: Additions and Changes

 * Added function to receive Expansion Pass 2.
 * The availability of “Soyprimo Sauce” was previously restricted outside of the progress of a certain quest, so now the City Caravan shop located in the City will sell Soyprimo Sauce.
 * Increased the effect time bonus for Fusion Arts using the Flash Fencer’s “” Art.

Fixes

 * Fixed items “Gogol Dalm”, and “Gogol Olipple”, previously unavailable in Ver. 1.1.1, so that they can now be acquired.
 * Fixed an issue in which a character’s audio of falling in battle would play over the sound of them falling down before the screen faded to black.
 * Fixed additional issues to improve the gameplay experience.

Unlisted changes

 * The player can save up to 15 party formations for quick access.
 * The chapter 7 cutscene "Those Who Thwart Hope" was changed to correct a weapon's appearance.