PLEASE NOTE: This article contains MASSIVE Spoilers for the Xenoblade Chronicles series. Proceed at your own risk.The DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 continues to provide players with new content such as the addition of its latest hero, Masha, included as a part of Volume 3. Along with Volume 3's announcement in the recent Nintendo Direct, a teaser was shown for Volume 4 that featured new story content with major implications for the franchise. While Xenoblade Chronicles 3 featured some returning characters from the previous entries, protagonists Rex and Shulk were notably absent, until the trailer for Volume 4 confirmed their return.
Fans of the Xenoblade Chronicles series will recognize Shulk from the first entry in the series as the protagonist who took down the god Zanza and reformed the world using the power of the Monado blade. Rex is also recognizable, albeit a lot more grown up in this teaser, as he is shown wielding the Aegis weapons of Pyra and Mythra since he is their Driver as protagonist of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Given the nature of Xenoblade Chronicles 3's world of Aionios, having both former protagonists show up together in this DLC has the potential to bring the series' lore full circle.
The Two Protagonists' Presence Could Give Context to Some Loose Plot Threads
The setting of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the artificial world of Aionios which was created as a failsafe when the threat of the worlds of the first two games began to merge into one that would destroy the individual worlds in the process. To avoid this calamity, Melia and Nia devised a plan to store data for all inhabitants of their original worlds on an ark-like supercomputer known as Origin that could rebuild their respective worlds, allowing them to separate back to their original state. While this event sets the backdrop for the plot of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, it implies that certain characters from the Xenoblade Chronicles series should be present somewhere within Aionios.
However, important figures like Shulk and Rex, the heroes of their respective games, are not present within the main storyline of Xenoblade Chronicles 3. The two are only every alluded to by Nia and Melia, with the game's finale showing Nia holding a picture of Rex and their companions and Melia keeping Shulk's Monado safe among her belongings. This portrayal left players with just as many questions as it did answers as to the status of these series icons and their relation to the events of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
Given the newly shown teaser for the game's DLC, it's highly likely that this new story content will be a prequel to the events of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 that gives context to the role Shulk and Rex play in overarching lore of the game's world. Volume 4 of the Expansion Pass could involve the Lost Numbers, who are the decedents of the first Ouroboros and oppose the Consuls' control, that have a hall dedicated to their founders located within the City. However, while most of these statues are of named characters, two of them are not of the founders themselves, but of their yet unnamed masters instead.
The statues for the masters of Founder Reid and Founder Cassini looked familiar to many players upon initial impressions. However, with the latest teaser for the Expansion Pass Vol. 4, it was made clear that these statues are in fact Shulk and Rex given they match exactly with the new designs for the characters. This implies that the story DLC in Volume 4 could follow the founding of the Lost Numbers and finally provide an explanation for where Shulk and Rex are during the events of the game's main story, potentially tying up one of Xenoblade Chronicles 3's major mysteries left hanging that would bring the trilogy full circle.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is available now for Nintendo Switch.
