The highly-anticipated Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was released on July 29 for the Nintendo Switch after months of buildup among fans of the franchise. The new game features an open-world map that's more ambitious than those seen in previous entries in the Xenoblade Chronicles saga, allowing players to travel through various regions and biomes as they undergo a journey that could take them upwards of 100 hours to play through in its entirety. That, plus Xenoblade Chronicles 3's improved visuals and updated gameplay make it a must-play not only in terms of the series itself but of JRPGs as a whole.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was revealed during February 2022's Nintendo Direct and originally slated for a September release. As the conclusion to the then-ongoing story of the series, the announcement was met with quite a bit of excitement, so much so that preorders for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition actually managed to crash Nintendo's site. Now that the game has actually released, it's looking as though it more than lives up to the hype for both new players and long-time fans of the series. Even the Expansion Pass DLCs that are slated to come out over the next year and a half seem massive in terms of content.
As both a continuation of the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise and a standalone game, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has gotten great reviews and is already becoming considered a blueprint for future JRPGs. Part of the reason for this is its world design. The Xenoblade Chronicles games have often featured huge maps, with Xenoblade Chronicles X's being even larger than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's. Xenoblade Chronicles 2's was only slightly smaller, perhaps due in part to the world's separate regions. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 features a fairly similar design, being likewise split into various different regions for players to traverse. It's still possible to view them all at once, though, which helps provide a sense of just how big Xenoblade Chronicles 3's map is.
Even before Xenoblade Chronicles 3 officially launched, fans were speculating that it would be one of the biggest titles in the series to date. When the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 file size appeared alongside its listing on the Nintendo Switch a few months prior, many quickly noted that it was the largest out of any other game in the franchise. On Switch, the first two games are around 13.5GB, but Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is listed at around 15GB. Add into that the fact that the game's developers claim its map is 5 times as large as Xenoblade Chronicles 2's, and it becomes apparent just how much there is to do in the latest Xenoblade entry.
Xenoblade Chronicles X's map size, according to Polygon, was a whopping 154 square miles in diameter. It's harder to pin a specific size on the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, given its split areas, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3's open world suffers from the same problem. Although the exact numbers aren't known, it certainly looks as though developers' estimates are close to accurate. Xenoblade Chronicles 3's map is as expansive as it is immersive, featuring plenty of settlements that grow and evolve throughout the story and randomly encountered battles that keep traversing its vast regions from becoming tedious. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 isn't only bigger than Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but it's more ambitious and engaging, as well.
Source: Polygon
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