After a surprise bumping up of its release last month, Nintendo and Monolith Soft's Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is very quickly approaching. Earlier today, Nintendo aired the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Direct, a presentation focused entirely on showcasing the upcoming JRPG as it gears up for an early release. The show ended with a surprise in revealing that the game will be supported by post-launch DLC alongside an expansion pass, which teases new Xenoblade Chronicles 3 story content arriving by December 2023.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was first revealed during the February 2022 Nintendo Direct presentation, where it was revealed that the highly anticipated follow-up to 2017's Xenoblade Chronicles 2 would release in just roughly seven months. Nintendo then shocked fans again by revealing that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 would be pushed forward to July 29th, with Splatoon 3 now occupying its September release window. Given that the game is expected to include hundreds of hours of content, it came as a major surprise to fans to learn that its release was being pushed forward, and with the absence of an E3-style Nintendo Direct or Treehouse presentation, fans began to wonder when Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will appear again.
That is until earlier this week, when Nintendo announced the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Direct, which has now aired and revealed a plethora of new details regarding Xenoblade Chronicles 3's combat, characters, world, and story. One of the biggest surprises came at the end however, where it was revealed that much like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the third game will receive post-launch DLC alongside an expansion pass that will cost $29.99 at launch.
The expansion pass will be available alongside the game on July 29th, and will arrive immediately with "helpful items," and an Outfit Color Variants pack, likely containing cosmetics. The game will receive two more batches of DLC by December 2022 and April 2023 respectively, adding two new extra challenge battles, Hero characters, quests, and outfits. The fourth and final DLC batch will arrive by December 31st, 2023, and will include a new story scenario, likely similar in scope to Xenoblade Chronicles 2's Torna - The Golden Country DLC.
Fans of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will likely remember Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country, the game's DLC expansion that launched around nine months after the main game and featured roughly 25 hours of brand-new content, serving as a prequel. Torna - The Golden Country also introduced many new mechanics that can be found in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. If Xenoblade 3's DLC is anything like its predecessor's, it will be well worth the price tag.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will release on July 29th 2022, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
