Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Future Redeemed

Future Redeemed is the extension of the game Xenoblade Chronicles 3, released as a DLC for Nintendo Switch on late April 2023. Like Torna : The Golden Country for Xenoblade 2, this extension was last part of the additional content of the game, split into four parts. The two previous one added new heroes, and this one is an entire new chapter. However, until today, Future Redeemed is still a DLC for the main game and no physical release like Torna has been announced yet.

Future Redeemed is a prequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Similar to the main game, its story connects both the two previous games and develops the background story of the City’s Founders.

An unknown amount of time ago before the game’s story, Shulk, Rex and Z were fighting against Alvis, who returned to its actual self, Ontos, one of the three Trinity Processors. Now called Alpha, he judged the world of Aionios and its population as disposable and decided to erase them and create a new world. Shulk and Rex were barely able to stop him and got heavily injured in the fight.

Matthew is one of the few survivors after the attack led by Moebius N that destroy the first City. He now travels with A, who helped him while he was wounded. They’re both searching the region for City survivors, especially Matthew who’s searching for his sister and is hoping to rebuild the City. Both of them are welder of the Ourobouros power and they’re the target of Moebius. During their travel, they encounter a Keves and Agnus battle that ended up by a mutual annihilation. While intervening in the fight of the last two survivors, Matthew uses his Ourobouros power and transmit it to Glimmer and Nikol, the last Agnus and Kevesis remaining, now freed from the Flame Clock. However, Glimmer doesn’t enjoy her new condition and fled to the closest Agnus colony.

Similar to Torna, Future Redeemed is a complete almost-standalone game that brings its own style. Of course the game’s mechanics are globally the same but it explores a nice alternative to the original gameplay mostly in the battle system. The most notable missing part is the Ourobouros Fusion that doesn’t exist at this time, with an explanation saying the Ourobouros techniques were not yet mastered. There’s still the Fusion skills with two arts joined together, but the Ourobous Fusion has been replaced by the Unity skills which are basically the same idea : two paired characters launching a special attack. The difference here is the pairs are not defined by the story like in Xenoblade 3 but the player car define and explore several combinaisons. Also, there’s not anymore the possibility to change the character’s classes, they’re fixed. Since the game is shorter than the main one, the character’s evolution has been split into three aspects.

First, there is the usual leveling, nothing new. Then, the characters earn some Affinity Points by doing several actions : exploring, finding items, collecting items, filling the various game’s encyclopedia, fighting ennemies, etc. These points are used in the Affinity Growing that unlock skills and amelioration, similar to the Ourobouros enhancement in the main game. The last character evolution aspect is the Artes, accessories and gems unlocking. The slots are locked at the beginning and the player must find some items that will permit to unlock them. Since in Xenoblade you can grind to gain level and easily proceed in the story, it’s a nice way to restrict the characters abilities and unlock them as the exploration progress. A word about the game’s exploration : it’s basically the same mechanics. Nothing special aside a radar that beeps when the player is near a special event (chest, ether channel, etc). Since the character’s evolution relies on it, it’s a good help. However, the beeping can be annoying when there’s several items detected. One specific evolution of this extension is the field craft system, where the characters can build some ladders or ether channel that help them to travel to inaccessible area. Some beacons are also available to mark on the map the various things to find.

Regarding the characters, you have a clue about their identity very quickly if you remember the memorial hall of the City in the main game. They’re the Founders, and that’s what I’ve expected for the extension. We learn at the beginning of the game that Matthew and Na’el are the great-grand children of the versions of Noah and Mio that would become N and M, their child appearing as Matthew and Na’el grand father. Glimmer and Nikol are both new unexplored characters that help to explore the story setting from their perspective, with some troubling ressemblances with Pneuma for Glimmer (she has her Core Crystal) and a very young Shulk for Nikol (and he is also an engineer geek). And the two last characters we can play are older versions of Shulk and Rex, I would say around 35-40 years old. If the evolution of Shulk’s design seems pretty conventional, I must say that Rex became pretty badass. The characters are different in their original games, Shulk a young adult while Rex was a young teenager (and annoying). Rex is now a kind of bulky old veteran and that’s a nice evolution for the character. Their personalities has not changed a lot. Of course, Rex is more mature, but he’s still hot-blooded while Shulk is still reasonable and always thinking before acting. The maps of the game revolves around Shulk and Rex too since it’s composed on various key locations from their respective universe, notably the Prison Island.

On the story’s side, it’s in the continuity of rejoining the various story lines of the Xenoblade franchise together. If Xenoblade 3 merged both settings, Future Redeemed added the details of Xenoblade Chronicles : Future Connected with the Fog Beasts which are back along with the Keves/Agnus fights and the Moebius. A truce with Z is implied in the story since Alpha is a common and bigger threat to this world. Also, since we’re exploring the place with the characters who know the original worlds, even the first one, they sometimes explain what was the place and some memories they have about it. It’s similar to the quests we can unlock after finishing the main game and unlocking Melia and Nia but set during the exploration. Despite being just an extension, Future Redeemed is a very complete game that offers around 20 hours of gameplay, with post-game contents too. The story is quite dense for this little prequel and answer a lot of pending questions, even the origins of some characters of Xenoblade 3, the origin of the Lucky Seven blade, etc. Also during a chapter, we have a short picture of Klaus’ world before its destruction with some new lore explained. Another aspect well developed by the story of Future Redeemed is the back story of N since the main character is related to him. The prequel ending connects perfectly with the main game lore and even extends its epilogue.

With a lot of content to explore and a good story, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 : Future Redeemed is the extension I’ve expected for the main game. It develops some untold parts from the main story and nicely complete it. I’ve really enjoyed it, and now I’m wondering what would be the next game of the series after seeing the epilogue.