Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Set after the events of Xenoblade Chronicles (2010) and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017), Xenoblade Chronicles 3 takes place in Aionios, a world made up of merged locations from Bionis, the world of Xenoblade Chronicles, and Alrest, the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, where the nations of Keves and Agnus are at constant war.[5] The world is divided into Colonies, each with their own giant mecha called a Ferronis, which are fueled by the life force of fallen enemy soldiers and trap it in a Flame Clock.[6] The wars are fought by engineered soldiers with artificially limited lifespans of ten years, referred to as Terms. They fight to fuel their Colony's Flame Clock and survive to the end of their tenth Term in hopes of receiving a Homecoming ceremony.[7] Among both forces are "off-seers", soldiers who play flutes in rituals to send off the dead. The game features six main characters who have the power of Ouroboros, including two protagonists: Noah, a Kevesi off-seer accompanied by his childhood friends Lanz and Eunie; and Mio, an Agnian off-seer accompanied by her fellow servicemen Taion and Sena.[8] The two groups are joined by their Nopon support members: Kevesi mechanic Riku and Agnian chef Manana. Other major characters include the Vandham family, who lead a faction called the Lost Numbers that consists of Guernica, his daughter Monica, and granddaughter Ghondor; Melia Antiqua from Xenoblade Chronicles and Nia from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, who are the true queens of Keves and Agnus; and Moebius, an organization led by Z that manipulates the war between Keves and Agnus and is made up of powerful beings called Moebius that act as Consuls and are each identified only by a single letter.

The downloadable story expansion Future Redeemed is set centuries before the main game's story and takes place in the Cent-Omnia region, an area of Aionios not explored in the main game. It follows a previous group of Ouroboros that was formed after Consul N destroyed the original City. Like the main game, Future Redeemed features six party members: Matthew Vandham, who is from the City and is traveling with a mysterious being named A to search for his sister Na'el; Shulk and Rex, the respective protagonists of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 who now lead the Liberators to oppose Moebius; and Nikol and Glimmer, Shulk and Rex's respective children who are unaware of their parentage and fight for Keves and Agnus respectively. Other major characters include Panacea and Linka, Shulk's and Rex's respective protégés; and Alpha, a being born from Alvis from Xenoblade Chronicles.

Kevesi soldiers Noah, Lanz, and Eunie, as well as the Nopon Riku, are tasked with intercepting a mysterious airship and destroying its cargo. Upon reaching the target area, they encounter an Agnian squad consisting of Mio, Sena, Taion, and the Nopon Manana. A fight breaks out between the two groups, but then Guernica Vandham, the airship's sole survivor, intervenes to stop the fighting and claims he knows their "true enemy." However, when Consul D attacks him and the two groups, it forces him to activate the Ouroboros Stone he was smuggling and imbue Noah and Mio's teams with its power. D is forced to retreat, and a mortally wounded Guernica instructs the teams to head for the City at Swordmarch to find answers.

With the Consuls having ordered Keves and Agnus to hunt them down, Noah and Mio's teams band together to reach Swordmarch, liberating Colonies along the way by destroying their Flame Clocks. The Queen of Keves attacks the party with a weapon of mass destruction called the Annihilator and threatens to destroy the liberated Colonies with it. This forces the party to detour to Keves Castle, where they destroy the Annihilator and discover that the soldiers of Keves and Agnus are clones created to fight each other. They are then confronted by the Queen and Consul N, a man physically identical to Noah. The party defeats the Queen, who is revealed to be a robotic imposter.

After escaping, the party encounters the Lost Numbers, a group led by Guernica's daughter Monica. She leads them to the City, whose population consists of humans with regular lifespans who also oppose Moebius. Monica explains that Moebius orchestrated the war to harvest life energy from the bloodshed in an endless cycle, and that the true Queens created the power of Ouroboros to oppose them before going into hiding. Monica tasks the party with infiltrating the prison underneath Agnus Castle to rescue her daughter Ghondor, who knows the Queens' location. The group stages a prison break, but is betrayed by Shania of the Lost Numbers and ambushed by N and his partner Consul M, a woman physically identical to Mio. The party is captured and taken to Agnus Castle for execution, and only Ghondor escapes. There, Noah lives through N's memories and learns that N and M lived countless lives trying and failing to stop Moebius. When his Mio died, it led N to accept a Faustian bargain with Moebius' leader Z to revive M and spend eternity with her in exchange for both of them becoming Moebius; Noah and Mio are reincarnations of N and M, who split off from them and embody their hope.

On the day of the execution, it is revealed that M sacrificed herself to use her psychic powers to switch bodies with Mio and die in her place. The party drives off N, destroys the false Queen of Agnus, and awakens the true Queen of Agnus, Nia. D ambushes them and wounds Nia, but the party kills him in battle. Nia explains that in the past, the world was split into the parallel worlds of Bionis and Alrest, which would inevitably merge back together in an event called the Intersection and destroy all life in the process. Melia, Nia, and the inhabitants of both worlds established communication and collaborated to create Origin: an ark to store both worlds' data and memories and their inhabitants' souls and reboot them once they merged. However, Z captured Melia and hijacked Origin for his own ends, creating Aionios. The party storms Origin, defeating N and freeing Melia. They confront Z, who is a manifestation of humanity's fear of the future and desire to stay in the 'endless now'. N and M, whose spirits remained inside Noah and Mio, sacrifice themselves to permanently destroy Z.

With Origin reactivated, the reconstruction process for both worlds proceeds, which requires the people of Keves and Agnus to be separated and returned to their respective worlds. The party members part ways and Noah and Mio share a kiss before the worlds separate, promising to reunite one day. Everyone is restored in the new world at the moment Bionis and Alrest merged, with no memories of their experiences within Aionios. As he heads for a fireworks show, Noah hears the sound of Mio's flute playing and decides to follow the music.

Centuries before Moebius is defeated by Noah and his comrades, the first City is destroyed by N. Matthew Vandham, a young resident of the City who received the power of Ouroboros from his grandfather, escapes the City and encounters a mysterious person named A. They team up to search for City survivors and kill several Consuls before finding two soldiers, Nikol and Glimmer, who are the sole survivors of their respective armies. Matthew intervenes in their battle, granting Nikol and Glimmer the power of Ouroboros and convincing them to cease hostilities against each other. Later, they encounter Shulk and Rex, the leaders of a resistance group called the Liberators who are sheltering City survivors and those who seek to escape from Moebius' rule, along with their students Panacea and Linka and their mechanic Riku.

Rex and Shulk explain that they have currently formed a truce with Moebius to fight their common foe, Alpha: an artificial intelligence derived from Alvis that is controlling Origin. When Moebius rose to power and created Aionios, Alpha concluded that Moebius, Keves, Agnus, and the original worlds should be exterminated, planning to create an entirely new world using the City survivors as its foundation. The Liberators and Moebius had previously clashed with Alpha, leaving both sides heavily weakened, and Alpha subsequently chose Matthew's sister Na'el as its vessel to regain its strength. Alpha clashes with Matthew and his comrades and attempts to convince Matthew to join its side when N intervenes. Alpha retreats and challenges Matthew to come to Origin to settle their differences. Matthew learns that N is his great-grandfather, whose destruction of the City was an unintended consequence of attempting to kill Alpha, and that A is Alpha's "conscience", having split off as a separate entity who has Alvis' memories.

Matthew and his comrades journey to Origin to confront Alpha. N attempts to stop them since he believes Alpha has a reason for luring Matthew to Origin, but is defeated. Inside Origin, Matthew finds Na'el inside a reconstruction of Earth before it was split in two by Klaus's experiment. Na'el explains that Alpha promised her a world without violence, but Matthew counters that because Alpha does not understand human emotion, any world it tries to build is doomed to fail. Alpha challenges Matthew and his party once again, and they work with N to call upon the power of Ouroboros and defeat Alpha. Afterwards, A, Shulk, and Rex enter Origin's core to replace Alpha and keep Origin operational. Before they leave, Shulk and Rex use their newfound authority to extend Nikol and Glimmer's lifespans and tell the party that they are confident Moebius will eventually be defeated. Origin is hidden away once again, and in the process the Cent-Omnia region is destroyed.

In the aftermath, Matthew, Na'el, Nikol, Glimmer, Panacea, Linka and Riku become the future Founders of the new City, leading the City survivors and Liberators in rebuilding it and upgrading the Ouroboros Stone. Matthew decides to leave on a journey to recruit more members to join the City. Centuries later, after Origin is reactivated by Noah and his friends, the two worlds of Bionis and Alrest are merged back into one world as a single bright light approaches it from space.

Composition of the game's soundtrack was led by Yasunori Mitsuda.

As with previous numbered games in the series, the game's soundtrack was written by Yasunori Mitsuda, Manami Kiyota, ACE (Tomori Kudo and Hiroyo "CHiCO" Yamanaka), and Kenji Hiramatsu. They were joined by Mariam Abounnasr, who arranged tracks for Xenoblade Chronicles 2,[12] and Yutaka Kunigo. In order to create a sound that had not been heard before, Monolith Soft had custom flutes created in different sizes and tuned to different scales resembling flutes from the game. The first track Mitsuda worked on for the game was "A Life Sent On", its main theme. Takahashi told Mitsuda in advance to interweave the two melodies of Noah and Mio into a single piece of music, and Mitsuda seemed to have thought that creating the flutes would enable him to express himself easier.[14] As with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the Irish choral ensemble Anúna assisted in recording vocals for the game. Members Aisling and Lauren McGlynn provided vocals for tracks themed around Ouroboros and Moebius respectively, while Sara Weeda sung "A Step Away" and the ending theme, "Where We Belong".[15] The Future Redeemed expansion features a new ending theme, "Future Awaits", sung by Joanne Hogg, who previously sang the ending themes of Xenogears and Xenosaga Episode I.[16][17]

An original soundtrack was released on August 2, 2023.[18] It was revealed alongside the soundtrack to Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and the Xenoblade Chronicles Original Soundtrack Trinity Box, a limited edition package featuring the soundtracks for all three mainline games in the series.[19] The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Original Soundtrack was announced to be available in a regular edition and a limited edition containing 1/3 scale replicas of the flutes used by Noah and Mio throughout the game's story, as well as a 80-page deluxe booklet with liner notes and interviews with the composers. The limited edition was also revealed to be releasing sooner than the regular edition on July 29, 2023, exactly one year after the game's original release. Both editions also contain the music for Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed.[20]

A collector's edition was announced on April 19, 2022, to be sold exclusively on My Nintendo Store, following the announcement of the July 29th release date. The collector's edition contains an art book, a steelbook case, and an outer collectible packaging.[23] Preorders opened on June 7, but due to unforeseen logistical circumstances, the My Nintendo Store crashed on that day, logging various users out, leaving many unable to preorder the game.[24] Furthermore, as a result of the release date being moved up in the year, production for the collector's edition ended up being hindered, causing certain Nintendo stores to sell the contents of the collector's edition, minus the game, as a separate item in the UK,[25] while the extra contents of the North American special edition were delayed to ship in Fall 2022.[26]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was the bestselling retail game during its first week of release in Japan, with 112,728 physical copies being sold.[44] It was also the bestselling physical game during its first week of release in the UK, where it had the biggest launch for the entire Xeno franchise in terms of copies sold.[45] As of March 2023, it has sold 1.86 million copies.[46]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 received multiple end-of-year accolades, including "Game of the Year" nominations at the New York Game Awards, Golden Joystick Awards, and The Game Awards. At IGN's "Best of 2022" awards, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 won the category of "Best RPG".[47]