You may wonder if you need to play the other games in the series before Xenoblade Chronicles 3. After all, if this is the third game (it’s actually the fourth), you must be missing something by not checking out the other two. We’ll discuss whether you need to play the other Xenoblade Chronicles games before 3 below.
Do I need to play the rest of the games before Xenoblade Chronicles 3?
You don’t have to play the rest of the games in the Xenoblade Chronicles series before 3. In fact, you shouldn’t really think about them at all, even if you’ve played them. For the most part, all they share is similarities in gameplay, themes, and some of the same items and races. They’re a bit like Final Fantasy for the most part. For example, almost every Final Fantasy game has Chocobos, and every Xenoblade has Nopon.
However, unlike Final Fantasy, Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 do crossover toward the end. I said not to even think about them while playing the third game because they introduce some wacky meta plotline. Essentially, the world in the first Xenoblade Chronicles is created when a human scientist named Klaus discovered an object called the Conduit, which can open a gate to another dimension. His lab is attacked, and he uses the Conduit in an attempt to escape. However, it doesn’t work as planned. Half of Klaus’s body and his fellow scientist Galea are inadvertently transported to the world seen in Xenoblade Chronicles. The half of Klaus is reborn as Zanza, and Galea becomes Meyneth, and they become the souls of the Bionis and Mechonis, respectively.
In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, you learn that the first two games are taking place at exactly the same time and that Alrest was made by the Architect, who was the other half of Klaus. Fortunately, this is the good half, and he created Alrest to preserve humanity.
It’s not apparent how Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will connect to the other games yet. It might just be its own thing like Xenoblade Chronicles X, or we may be seeing a third world that was created during the incident with the Conduit.
