After years of waiting, the potential reveal of Monolith Soft's next big project has come. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was just allegedly leaked and is supposed to be late in development. Its release date is said to be in 2022, which suggests a Nintendo Direct reveal in the next few months. Fans are quite happy about this, as Xenoblade Chronicles 2's revelations left the world feeling like it still had room to grow. If this rumor is accurate, then fans can once again expect to return to the Xenoblade world wielding another iteration of the Monado. Really, there's no bad way to take this news, assuming that it is actually true.
A big part of that excitement is the chance to go back and make some more refinements to the series. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was very popular, and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition was a surprise hit as well, as it reached many people who had missed it the first time around. However, it's hard to discuss these games without mentioning some of their shortcomings. The discourse around Xenoblade Chronicles 2 became pretty intense after it came out, and while it's quieted down, developer Monolith Soft should take some of the complaints to heart. These games are excellent examples of what modern JRPGs can be, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 should exemplify this reputation.
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A major downgrade from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 to 2 was the removal of character customization. Partially because of that, there have been plenty of debates as to the quality of the main cast's outfits in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. While there were options to change them very late in the game, it didn't affect the discourse. This major feature from Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X should make a triumphant return, and let players design their own ensembles. It would be even better if it took The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's approach (another game Monolith Soft has worked on) and let players color individual pieces so that they can mix and match accessories.
Furthermore, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 should try to have a more unified art style. This is a somewhat vague goal, but the basic idea is to have characters, monsters, and environments mesh together well. This was accomplished better in other games Monolith Soft has contributed to. This issue was in part due to the many different artists contracted for character design in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, as Monolith Soft did not have an internal character designer at the time. If the general art style of characters' faces could be modified to something closer to Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected, then that would be a good step towards unifying the art style. The rest would have to be played by ear, but there are certainly ways to make the more anime characters look less out of place beside each other, let alone the monsters.
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2's Blade system was an interesting experiment, and if 3's leak can be trusted regarding the return of certain characters far in the future, there is a good chance that some Blades will return. The many Blade party members did contribute somewhat to the over-reliance on guest artists, but that can be fixed. However, one part of it that needs to be removed outright is the random loot box system used to get many Blades. There was no reason for this to be in the game, aside from attempting to emulate the feeling of getting a rare prize in a gacha game that normally requires real money to get more rolls. Such a thing shouldn't be in a single-player game with no DLC, and the mercenary missions where excess Blades are sent out on timers should be reworked or removed as well. These sorts of normally financial hooks have no place in a full-priced single-player RPG. Xenoblade 3 would be better off with a more tightly designed core cast, anyways.
Something that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 could have that 2 felt like it was missing is playable mech suits. While this would rob Xenoblade Chronicles X of some of its identity, this cool concept is just sitting there unused right now. Mechs do play a part in the regular Xenoblade games' story, but not to the degree that they did in past installments and Xenoblade X. This chains into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 possibly becoming more of an open-world game, rather than just an RPG with particularly large areas. Much like in Xenoblade Chronicles X, once a player has access to a mech, they can go anywhere and fight things that they normally wouldn't be able to. Having mechs around expands the scope of a Xenoblade game, and the ideal Xenoblade 3 would bring them back.
A problem many newcomers to the Xenoblade franchise had with 2 was its approach to tutorials. Xenoblade Chronicles is known for being a mechanically rich series of open-world RPGs, with a unique take on real-time menu-based combat. It's difficult to describe it in more exact terms due to the many additional elements layered on, like the importance of the targeted side of a marked monster, different methods of debilitation working on different types of enemies, and the occasional quick-time event. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 handles its tutorial by throwing a lot of combat and menu elements at the player very quickly, often in the form of long text dumps before much of the information is pertinent. This also goes on for a long time, with new tutorial boxes popping up every once in a while. This will be a hard issue to solve as no doubt there will be even more mechanics in the next game, but it can surely be presented to players better.
The rest of the improvements for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 should be just that: improvements. Monolith Soft should take the lessons it learned from its various other games and apply them to Xenoblade Chronicles 3. A map that is comprehensive but also easy to read, quests and social activities that don't require much tedious grinding, and more attention paid to the pacing of the story. Xenoblade 2 made the mistake of having a spike of excitement during its prologue, and then nothing really relevant to the core plot happened for a while. All four Xenoblade games released so far have been quite good, so it can be reasonably expected that the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will continue that trajectory. With any luck, it will be the most impressive and fun title in the series.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is rumored to be in development for Nintendo Switch.
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