A brand-new trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was released this morning, and besides conveying disparate parts of its story in an intriguing (if confusing) way, and offering a release date of July 29th (bumped UP from its previous window of September), it also showed off some battle mechanics for the first time: giving us an idea of what the core gameplay will actually look like.
Core gameplay is like previous Xenoblade titles — you’ll walk around the massive overworld and engage enemies directly on the field. Unlike previous games, however, you can have a whole six party members out at once (in other words, the entire cast), along with other characters you befriend during your adventure, such as Riku & Manana. Characters cast arts with a button layout similar to XBC2’s, but in a manner more akin to XBC1 — no Blade system here.
New to Xenoblade is a Class system. Characters will start in one set class and be able to swap to others as the game progresses. This also affects their appearance, naturally — they’ll change jackets with classes to match their roles. Honestly it looks snazzy as heck.
The big new feature drop is the Ouroboros — a new form that certain pairs (Noah and Mio, Lanz and Sena, Eunie and Taion) can “Interlink” to form up, creating mecha-esque fusions with powerful movesets. Besides being another Gnostic element in the world of Xenoblade (Monolith Soft loves those), each Ouroboros has a powerful moveset that can change the tide of battle. So much can happen when a man and woman come together, I guess.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 releases for the Switch on July 29th, 2022. Here’s the new trailer if you haven’t yet caught it:
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
