Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the long-awaited third installment in the Xenoblade Chronicles series. rival nations Keves and Agnus are engaged in perpetual war; shackled to 'Flame Clocks', their soldiers are bound to a 10-year lifespan that can only be reached by killing and claiming the lives of their enemies.

when Agnian Mio and Kevesi Noah gain the power of Ouroboros, they and their allies are forced to cooperate in their newfound fight against Moebius and their search for the truth driving their world.

Xenoblade 3 feels like a love letter to the Xenoblade series. so much of the game -- in its areas, its characters, its music -- is so deeply referential to 1 & 2, and the gameplay combines the best parts of those games while streamlining some of the more janky parts (gems and overworld traversal, i'm looking at you).

and despite the frequent callbacks to previous games, it never feels like gratuitous fanservice. the references are a very intentional part of Aionios' worldbuilding, used to demonstrate the sheer weight of history that has been lost as a result of the Flame Clock system, and indirectly further dehumanises the characters as nothing more than soldiers trapped in an endless war. certain areas in Aionios are so blatantly the remnants of areas that held significance in previous games that it physically hurts to see them fallen into disrepair, little more than set dressing. it SLAPS.

i've said before that no game has ever enthralled me as immediately as Xenoblade Chronicles ... but Xenoblade 3 comes pretty damn close. the day the game released i parked myself up on the couch and played for about 10 hours straight (through to the end of Chapter 2), stopping literally only to eat dinner. my flatmates had gone away overnight and arrived home the next day to find me in the exact same position on the couch, and one of them asked, quite concerned, "...have you slept?" (i had)

Xenoblade 3 also has THE richest cast of characters of the series, and honestly? quite possibly the richest cast of characters of any game i've ever played. the main party are all well-developed, complex characters in their own right, but ironically where Xenoblade 3 really shines is in its side characters and NPCs. many, many of them have personalities and stories of their own, and one of my favourite parts of the game is how all the unique sidequests are used to flesh out and further explore the world of Aionios, and all the different ways in which people are affected by it!

it's impossible to articulate just how important Xenoblade 3 is to me. so many of its themes feel laser-targeted to my 11-year-old self, and the fears i had about the impermanence of life that still linger on into adulthood.

the game explores the legacy we leave behind after we're gone and the ways in which we live on through others, and it grips you by the shoulders and says "the impermanence is the point. no matter how fleeting our lives, it will never undermine the purpose of our actions while we're here."

death still scares me. change still scares me. but Xenoblade 3 helped me realise that that's okay, and gave me the courage to step forward into an unknown future anyway.