It’s here we pick up the story in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the latest (and, we think, the greatest) installment in the numbered trilogy. We begin our story on Aionios, a world that appears to be a fusion of the Bionis and Alrest worlds from the previous two games.
Duality, fusion, and eternity are all core concepts in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and of course, we don’t intend to spoil any of the fantastic plot twists that await you later in the game. What is immediately apparent, however, is that our two universes have merged together but maintain an “opposite” stance to each other.
This is where Monolith Soft works their magic as developers. Although every game in a franchise naturally improves upon the previous iterations, Monolith Soft altered the gameplay systems in a way that directly tied into both the new story of Aionios and the overarching universe itself.
The clever interplay of games and mechanics begins with our setting, and particularly, our playable characters.
Aionios is separated into the two warring nations of Keves and Agnus, each with their own specific races (and, of course, our fluffy Nopon on both sides since they’re in every Xenoblade universe).
Our Keves characters are all from the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 1—we have Noah, a human (or Hom, if you prefer); Lanz, a hybrid Machina; and Eunie, a (probably latter-generation) High Entia.
And over with the Agnus crew, we see Xenoblade Chronicles 2—we have Mio, a cat-eared Gormotti; Taion, a human; and Sena, whose design and accent suggest she’s either descended from a Blade or from Indol.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 returns to the fabulous regional British accents, and these are also consistent markers of our characters and their lineage. The Urayans of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 make an appearance as a “third party” to this two-player war, with ocker Australian accents that speak to their isolationist history maintained despite the merger of the worlds.
But it’s not just characters—Monolith Soft even modified the gameplay to match the two worlds.