About

Xenoblade Chronicles 3, known in Japan as Xenoblade 3, is a role-playing video game developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo. It is the third entry of the Xenoblade series. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 merges together the worlds of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to create a brand new world that depicts the future of both previous entries. Initially announced on February 9th, 2022, during a Nintendo Direct, and scheduled to release for the Nintendo Switch in September, the game's release date was eventually changed to July 29th, 2022.

Origin

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was the final announcement of the February 9th, 2022, Nintendo Direct.^[1] The trailer was uploaded to Nintendo's YouTube channel shortly after the livestream event concluded (shown below). In the trailer, a release date of September 2022 was shown, though no specific date was given.

Online Presence

The trailer was a quick hit with Xenoblade Chronicles fans, as many noted aspects of the trailer that seemed to improve on previous entries in the series. In particular, fans liked the character designs of the new cast, particularly in contrast to characters like Pyra and Mythra in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 who showed a lot of skin. Twitter user @Rivers3k^[2] welcomed this, saying, "please let the xeno fanservice be a thing of the past," gaining over 70 retweets and 1,600 likes (shown below, left). User @blun_z^[3] tweeted they were happy that if nothing else, the lack of sexually provocative character designs would move discourse about the game away from complaints about fanservice, gaining over 300 retweets and 3,100 likes (shown below, right). Some posters in 4chan's /v/ board were less enthused about the art direction.^[4]

The trailer also inspired a swift deluge of fan art. User @canadiananiguy^[5] posted art of the character Nia, gaining over 1,100 retweets and 5,100 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). Redditor blitzblazer97 posted a Captain America: Civil War poster parody, gaining over 960 points in /r/Xenoblade_Chronicles.^[6]

Search Interest

External References