

I’m pleased to say that I couldn’t have been more wrong to have had such doubts.Īfter spending over 170 hours exploring Aionios with more still left to uncover, I haven’t felt this emotionally invested in a game for quite some time. There was more enough shown that impressed in the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Direct, but I feared that from what I had seen I was failing to feel the same connection with the game’s premise and the party characters compared to the unforgettable adventures that Monolith Soft has treated us to before. I was inevitably excited for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but, to be honest, I had also felt apprehensive about how I would find it and whether I was mentally ready to endure another sprawling JRPG this year. Nintendo Switch has offered the perfect way to experience Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country, presenting the chance to wander gargantuan worlds both at home and on the go. Unknowlingly sent on a covert mission during which they have a fateful encounter with each other’s undercover squad, the time has come for six soldiers from the rival factions – Keves’ Noah, Lanz and Eunie and Agnus’ Mio, Taion and Sena – to set aside their distrust for one another and defy their fate, in an effort to break the never-ending cycle of violence that binds their homelands and expose those who are responsible for it. Those that, by some small miracle, survive to reach the end of their tenth term receive what is seen as the greatest honour – to be commemorated in a special service, called the Homecoming, in front of their Queen. Most sadly lose their lives on the battlefield before their time is up, their remaining terms feeding the Flame Clock of their enemy’s Ferronis – towering mobile bases that are capable of unleashing their own devastation – and their drained bodies immediately reduced to become harrowing husks. Locked in an endless struggle, a Kevesi or Agnian soldier’s lifespan is limited to ten years – each year referred to as a term – in which they must continuously fight.

Here, the grim reality that you are met with is a never-ending conflict between Keves and Agnus – opposing martial nations whose soldiers fight in order to live while living solely to fight. After letting us adventure across the long-dormant corpses of fallen titans and whisking us away on a fantastical journey across an endless sea of clouds, Monolith Soft has struck a completely different tone with Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
