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Discussion Xenoblade Chronicles 3 announced, launches September 2022 (no open spoilers)

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Lanz is my guy. Because of the lack of Skells in the trailer, I must by law have Lanz as my fav mech.
 
Yellowmus said:
Calling it now.

Eunie's bio tomorrow morning gets more likes than Mio's.

(Sorry Mio I still love you)
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We'll see about that

Crq85OLUIAANhnB



On a slightly more serious note I feel like Mio's the most popular character so far based on fan engagement, so I'll be surprised if she does
 
The music in the first part of the trailer has an Anuna vocal and it sounds incredible. The main theme during the title reveal is also out of this world. So beautiful.

Mitsuda you magnificent man.
 
I’m an XC2 preferrer, but something XC1 does way better is map readability. Noticing this as I’m jumping back in

Idk why, can’t even really explain it, but I have trouble reading XC2’s maps sometimes and I don’t like how split up they are (like there should be one entire map of Gormott, but you have completely separate maps for areas that are connected for example)
 
Phendrift said:
I’m an XC2 preferrer, but something XC1 does way better is map readability. Noticing this as I’m jumping back in

Idk why, can’t even really explain it, but I have trouble reading XC2’s maps sometimes and I don’t like how split up they are (like there should be one entire map of Gormott, but you have completely separate maps for areas that are connected for example)
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Xb1 put a renewed focus on visual functional design, that was enhanced by Ms In XcX, and again in botw. You were visually able to identify and make a path of approach with dead reckoning.

It seems it wasn't a focus for xb2, or those with the know how were poached for botw.

One glance at xb3 leaves me not even concerned a little about this issue.
 
It could have made Sharla not suck. Even if you stick with the cooldown mechanic have her talent art do a giant ether blast or something to make up for it.
 
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Dark Cloud said:
It’s not going to be open world is all I’m saying. It’s not going to work.
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Again, that's a progression design thing, not a world design thing.

You can have a hub world or large multi map design and have It be completely open progression wise and the player free to travel between loading zones and have it hard to have a linear story.

And you can have a single persistent map with no loading screens and progression gating to keep the player out, until they've cleared the event flags to open them, gradually opening the map until it's all available, in the order of a linear story.
 
Dark Cloud said:
It’s not going to be open world is all I’m saying. It’s not going to work.
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Takahashi said they could have made it so that going from one Titan to another in 2 was seamless but decided against it as they thought traversal across clouds wouldn't be very fun.

In 3's trailer we see traversal across the ocean in a vehicle, so we can at the least presume that this time progression from one area to another will be seamless.

https://www.gamekult.com/actualite/...on-createur-tetsuya-takahashi-3050796525.html
Takahashi: We could have made switching from one Titan to another also free of any loading times, but crossing the ocean of clouds probably wouldn't have been so fun, so we did the choice to mark these transitions with cuts.
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Dark Cloud said:
The more I think about it the less I think it’ll be open world. Kind of hard to do a strong story like Xenoblade would want with a complete open world.
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if Digital Foundry's video of Horizon 2 is anything to go by, it's possible. if Guerilla can do it, I think Monolith Soft can as well
 
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Yellowmus said:
Takahashi said they could have made it so that going from one Titan to another in 2 was seamless but decided against it as they thought traversal across clouds wouldn't be very fun.

In 3's trailer we see traversal across the ocean in a vehicle, so we can at the least presume that this time progression from one area to another will be seamless.

https://www.gamekult.com/actualite/...on-createur-tetsuya-takahashi-3050796525.html
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That’s great to read. I’m hoping we end up with that. The vehicle was getting my hopes up. Then I listened to some YouTubers go on about how the story will not work in open world so it made me lose hope.
 
Dark Cloud said:
Also, watching Luxin new video we might have underwater exploration?? If we get that…I’ve been hoping for that in BotW 2.
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I'm very interested in seeing more of the basic traversal mechanics. As of right now, I have a hunch this is going to be the most dexterously interactive traversal/environment system in the series.
 
Chocobo Nopon riding through the mountains. Going through some places could get a little tiring like Eryth Sea. I wanted like a canoe to get around faster and was hoping we’d get some kind of speed up mechanic in XenoblaDE. We didn’t of course.
 
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Yellowmus said:
As soon as I saw this in the trailer I instantly thought underwater exploration.
bJIK5IK.jpg


Would be so hype if true! No previous Xenoblade game has this animation.
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This just opens up to a whole new world. We don’t even know how Monolith would tackle underwater exploration since we’ve never seen it before. Are we going to have Atlantis- a city underwater? Caves and enemies underwater? I gotta calm down. I’m getting into hype overload!
 
Dark Cloud said:
This just opens up to a whole new world. We don’t even know how Monolith would tackle underwater exploration since we’ve never seen it before. Are we going to have Atlantis- a city underwater? Caves and enemies underwater? I gotta calm down. I’m getting into hype overload!
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Haha! It's the bloody cut away just before Mio is fully submerged that feels like such a tease.

If true, I can't wait to see how they tackle it either.
 
Lord Azrael said:
I highly highly doubt it. It's probably just a jump in the water or animation flourish
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Why do you highly doubt? I'm not saying it's a definite, but remember, this is Monolithsoft; the same dev who allowed us to traverse a massive seamless open world in mechs and have them come in and out of a city with no loading times through sheer preserverance and will power.

They make dreams come true.
 
Worlds collide in Xeno 3. Anything is possible including underwater now. This is probably the last game for this story and they’re going to be as ambitious as possible I’d like to imagine. The camera was going down also helps me believe
 
Momo said:
Luxin brought up a good point in his latest video—the camera actually pans down during the diving animation, which could suggest that there is underwater exploration.
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Cameras follow characters when they jump too.

Yellowmus said:
Why do you highly doubt? I'm not saying it's a definite, but remember, this is Monolithsoft; the same dev who allowed us to traverse a massive seamless open world in mechs and have them come in and out of a city with no loading times through sheer preserverance and will power.

They make dreams come true.
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That was X. This is 3. Their design philosophies between the two subseries are different. Though I'd be happy if they bridge the gap between the two like it looks like they might be.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if underwater exploration is something Monolithsoft is ready to take a plunge at. It's a great way to keep things engaging while travelling between lands (aside from the obvious boat traversal) and I'd absolutely love it.

If true then that just leaves us to question how advanced the exploration will be; will it be fully explorable or will there be a limit before the player runs out of breath and has to swim back up to the surface? Either way I'm really excited.
 
One of the problems with a seamless open-world and heavy story focus is that you have to restrict where the story can go as mostly all events have to happen somewhere in the open-world.

Like yeah, in theory MS could have made a more seamless world with XC2 as mentioned above but the story they wanted to tell and the places it goes to clearly wasn't a good fit for an open-world.

What I'm saying is that it's always dependent on what story one wants to tell. Maybe this time around Takahashi has written a story where a seamless open-world works, but maybe XC4 has a story where it goes geographically all over the place and it just doesn't work. One is not better or worse.
 
sanstea said:
One of the problems with a seamless open-world and heavy story focus is that you have to restrict where the story can go as mostly all events have to happen somewhere in the open-world.

Like yeah, in theory MS could have made a more seamless world with XC2 as mentioned above but the story they wanted to tell and the places it goes to clearly wasn't a good fit for an open-world.

What I'm saying is that it's always dependent on what story one wants to tell. Maybe this time around Takahashi has written a story where a seamless open-world works, but maybe XC4 has a story where it goes geographically all over the place and it just doesn't work. One is not better or worse.
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No it's not.

Just because botw fucked up on this does not mean basic progression design that has existed forever is impossible lol.
 
Crusters said:
Pointing out people are regurgitating the exact same excuses given in botw interviews about 'story and seamless worlds' is 'bringing up botw for no reason'.
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Well yeah, because that is a completely different matter and not my point. I'm talking about how the story one wants to tell informs the game structure - not that heavy story focus doesn't work in a seamless open-world game. It's like you disregarded everything past the first sentence of my post.
 
I am still in disbelief that we'll have a proper JRPG trilogy on ONE system, like back in the old days.

After XB 2 I was dreaming they'd redo one in that style, and they did.

Then I was hoping for a follow-up to combine the two cast, and they did.

Monolith is the arbiter of dreams.
 
sanstea said:
Well yeah, because that is a completely different matter and not my point. I'm talking about how the story one wants to tell informs the game structure - not that heavy story focus doesn't work in a seamless open-world game. It's like you disregarded everything past the first sentence of my post.
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No, it doesn't. No, I didn't.

That is literally antithetical. Especially in monolithsofts case, and considering they are one of the premier world designers in the industry, that makes it pretty much just antithetical to good videogame world design. That's how you get potatoland world design.

Stories are cheap, and flexible. Game structures are not, and Takahashi and monolithsoft in particular, have learned many hard lessons in logistics on this, and where to start when designing a game, and how to make a compelling pitch for it's greenlight, and it's not the story for monolithsoft. Its the world. It's the first thing he did when he pitched the first Xenoblade to Nintendo. Literally made a replica of the world. The one they were going to need money to turn into a 3d videogame.

Takahashi: It wasn’t anything that calculated. (laughs) We’re making 3D games, so I thought it’d just be quick to see a 3D representation. Developers can’t waste three or four months on a prototype that might not pass muster. If we’re not constantly moving, we’re going to go out of business. I tried to come up with a way to get across our point easily without “moving” the company too much, and that’s what I came up with.

If you say, “This time we’re doing this story, with these characters” It’s just not going to pass muster. We have to explain our starting point and what our backbone is. If we get one out of ten shots, then we’re pretty damn lucky. We usually bring a few dozen to Nintendo.
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The starting point and backbone of the game are clearly not the story. This is before pre production. Starting with the story, and then tailoring the game too that, just doesn't pass muster.

Takahashi believes so strongly that it's about making a game world, that he says he used to start 'fights' at square soft over it. Not the stories. The world.

Takahashi: I used to start fights all the time. confronting my superiors at the top of my voice. (laughs)

Eguchi: What did you want to accomplish, taking it that far?

Takahashi: As I said before, I wanted to make a universe. At the time, “Final Fantasy VII” was using pre-rendered CG, and I thought, “You can’t make a world with this approach”. So, I wanted them to use 3D for everything. It’s the same as I said earlier. I wanted to make a world, and that hasn’t changed since then.
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He believes so strongly in his world centric game design that he left square soft and started monolithsoft over it.

I think the reason why I left the “FFVII” team had to do with the misanthropy I talked about earlier. I can’t go along with someone who doesn’t want to go in the same direction as me. I was also young then, too. So, I questioned myself, “Why am I making something I don’t even want to?”

We didn’t really fight or anything. We’re good friends, and we went to go out and eat together. I don’t hate them. But I just didn’t feel right about it. That took a toll on me, so I wanted to leave the team and make something else.
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But there is a far more powerful force Takahashi reckons with that controls the direction of a game.

Xenoblade 2 wasn't designed the way it was because of a story narrative. Its world wasn't informed by any story. It was designed the way it was because Takahashi knew that if 60 members of his then 100 member studio were being taken to work on botw, there would only be 40 to work on xb2. That's why it was a bad fit for an open world game, logistics. Monolithsoft freaking made xB2 with only 40 people. Thats like a modern wonder of the world. It was a bad fit for open world because they didn't have the logistical man power to make an open world game. As Takahashi said, they could have connected the Titans, but there would be nothing to do between them. No manpower to spare to make anything. So they planned the structure of the game world to match the logistical capability of their team. Nothing whatsoever to do with tayloring the game world to the story, 'the story you want to tell' can easily be applied to any game structure you want to tell it with. The real obstacle, is having the manpower and funds to do it all the way you want. Something Takahashi talks about a LOT.

This Taylor the game world to the story argument literally did not exist before Nintendo announced 'open air' Zelda would be the standard going forward. Now you literally can't try and talk about world design without someone trying to chill the discussion with it.

So maybe next time consider the possibility
there might be something more to it than 'theyre just too damn stupid to understand and are talking random nonsense'.

Or not since apparently that gets the approval of the state here.
 
Dark Cloud said:
This just opens up to a whole new world. We don’t even know how Monolith would tackle underwater exploration since we’ve never seen it before. Are we going to have Atlantis- a city underwater? Caves and enemies underwater? I gotta calm down. I’m getting into hype overload!
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Imagine... underwater exploration and you find corpses of titans that have sunk such as Tantal or maybe Indol or even dare I say Torna?
 
Linkstrikesback said:
Extremely unlikely with this game.

Given this appears to be a fairly by the numbers sequel in terms of presentation, and most likely game mechanics (I don't mean either of those as an insult!), as well as being presented as a direct story sequel to both 1 and 2, this game will probably not outperform Xenoblade 2, which was just over 2m last we got an update.

In order to outperform Xenoblade 2, it would have to be a significantly larger shake up of what people would expect from a game titled Xenoblade than it appears to be.

Persona 5's sales of around 3.2m is simply going to be out of range of Xenoblade 3, and that's not before we count the additional 1.8m copies of Persona 5 royal.

And that's fine.
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true but nintendo first party games nowadays seem to get a significant boost. see metroid dread.
 
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