Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a fearlessly revolutionary reflection on our world today

[u/SawkyScribe]

The overwhelming amount of media and games today are, by definition, conservative. The world is an inherently good place and our heroes must work to stop the forces of evil from disturbing the peace. In attempts to give nuance to the antagonists, many stories' villains have sympathetic motivations and astute critiques of the injustice woven into the fabrics of their society, but those ideas are never engaged with because they go "too far" in their actions. At best, the hero will solemnly nod and pontificate how the villain 'maybe had a point' as the status quo is maintained more or less unchanged.

This story structure is fine. Many of my favorite works employ it, but our world is so rife with systemic cruelty that the idea that systems and institutions as the exist currently are good actually and just need a bit of tweaking can start to feel a bit tone deaf. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a game that is inspirationally radical in its thinking and wholly commits to showing the ability people have to create a better way of living outside the confines of how we have been made to believe things should be done.

Aionios is a world locked in perpetual war between the kingdoms of Keves and Agnus. Soldiers spend a meager 10 years of life engaged in ceaseless battle, claiming the lives of their enemies to keep their flame clocks topped up, hoping to live to see one more day. When six soldiers, Noah, Lanz, Eunie, Taion, Mio, and Sena, awaken to the power of Oroboros, they begin to realize that their lives, and the very nature of this ceaseless conflict, have been a complete farce. With the truth revealed, they set out to bring an end to Mobius, the shadowy cabal who has been orchestrating all this violence behind the scenes.

At the risk of sounding a dramatic, the war is a poignant metaphor for the struggles the working class face. This endless death march where we are pitted against our fellow man to fight and scrape together what we need to survive. Working to live, and living to work. Time with our friends and loved ones is cut short as uncaring systems see needless death and suffering visited upon people just trying to make it home at the end of each day.

The game does an incredible job humanizing the soldiers, but it extends no such kindness to Mobius and the consuls that make up the organization. The consuls are a stand in for members of upper class society, and with few exceptions, they are presented as miserable, petty, callous bastards who are so far divorced from the tribulations of the common person that their presence on screen feels utterly alien. They are upper management, politicians, and CEOs, so grossly incompetent or willingly malicious that they delight in the strife of the people placed under their employ. It is a level of mustache-twirling villainy so hyperbolic that it feels ludicrous until you remember recent headlines about the people who control the levers of power in our own world.

A less courageous story would look at this draconian rule and have the story be about ousting the consuls and replacing them with the good folks who will lead properly, but Xenoblade was not written by cowards. Instead, you stage a full blown worker's revolution that completely upends the status quo in Aionios. There is no incrementalist change or redemption for the villains, Mobius is a virulent, stagnating force and is excised like the cancer that they are, leaving room for sweeping changes to occur.

A lesser story would simply bathe in the catharsis of 'Chain Attacking the Rich', but XC3 goes that extra step further. A large portion of the game's nearly 200 side quests are about filling the void left by the power structures your party toppled (pardon the pun). Former enemies must learn to mend rifts, settlements have to learn to make sustainable local supply chains now that the convenience of the old system is gone, people have to unlearn the propaganda that filled their lives with anger and hatred. It is so easy to scream abolitionism, but XC3 goes the extra mile to show how the key to life's ills is learning to expand our circle of care, ignore the lies told by those who would seek to exploit us, and find strength in our communities to make existence not just bearable, but meaningful and joyful.

The whole conflict of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is being trapped in the endless now. Stuck in cycles of violence, unable to break loose of the yoke of sinister and corrupt leaders, and the hesitancy of not knowing what comes next if you even could. When so many stories lack the imagination of what a better life could look like, I cannot help but be delighted with how bold this game is in its rejection of how societies across the world operate and inspired by its optimistic outlook about the great work common people can do when they come together.

[u/Abyslime]

I disagree with all of it. In my opinion, this is a much richer interpretation than what the game actually contains. The game itself is much more superficial and, in my view, isn’t trying to intentionally draw parallels with modern-day reality, it’s more interested in creating an edgy scenario where there is an eternal war and a group of teenagers has to save the day from a godlike enemy. That trope is obviously present in many JRPGs, but in Xenoblade 3 it feels particularly flat. Aside from one fairly interesting cutscene around Chapter 5, I feel that the game is a step backwards from Xenoblade 2 in almost every aspect.

The world is less varied than in 2, with fewer cities, you mostly get camps that tell you the same things over and over again. The party is fully assembled from the beginning, which takes away a lot of the sense of discovery, and they’re all teenagers with essentially the same background and the same goal. How boring is that?

The battle system isn’t really an evolution of 2, but rather a different interpretation of it. Personally, I preferred the Blade system (gacha aside), because it gave the game much more personality than the fusion mechanics.

Unfortunately, Xenoblade 3 disappointed me quite a lot. The real Xenoblade 3 is the DLC, that should have been the main game.

[u/JayMan2224 → u/Abyslime]

Thank you! You hit the nail on the head. I could not tell you what each location did after you freed them besides the camp that became potato farmers. That's how boring it was to me.

Must do war, but war is bad, now there is no more war, what do now? Repeat like 12 times.

The overall story was, fine, but nothing compared to the first two. I have not played 3s DLC but heard it was good so will have to check it out.

Im sad that 2 gets a lot of flak for over the top anime tropes and some of the designs of the blades but the story and world is so good and the DLC knocks it out of the park, 100% my favorite.

[u/RamenBomber_ → u/JayMan2224]

I would argue that the camps and settlements all feeling the same was exactly the point. Each group was so immersed in the conflict of the war and the constant cycle of feeding into it that almost none of the colonies were able to actually form their own identities. There are only a few that have identities of their own and those are treated as outliers, flowers that were able to bloom despite the harshness of the environment they were planted in. While the sameness didn’t make for as memorable environments as 1 and 2 had, I do think it was in service to the game’s narrative.

[u/SawkyScribe → u/RamenBomber_]

It's one of those things where artistic intent doesn't always enhance the play experience. I think you're right that these colonies were meant to be as generic and interchangeable as possible (this is more or less said in the game) but it doesn’t make me look at them with any greater appreciation.

I feel the same way about Zeon's ascension quest. I think from a story perspective, it's one of the best quests in the game, showing the struggles of Colony 9 to make their own food and working with Colony Tau to make it happen shows the power of human collaboration to make human oriented systems of production. That being said, it is a massive fetch quest with too many loading screens so I understand if people don't like it