Xenoblade Chronicles 3 saved Nintendo’s February Direct. That’s not to say that the Direct was bad, but it wasn’t incredibly epic either. This may be the fault of fan expectations though, because not every Nintendo Direct will be an E3-like seismic event. One also has to take into consideration that Nintendo’s latest direct was only for games coming out in the first half or so of this year. We should hear a lot more about titles such as Zelda around the time E3 rolls around. This direct was rather lackluster until we reached the end announcement. Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the fourth entry in the Xenoblade franchise, will be releasing on the Nintendo Switch in September 2022.
Living up to the Xenoblade name is a tall order. The series has been quite successful on the Nintendo Switch though. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition sold 1.52 million copies and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has sold 1.92 million units worldwide. September is the perfect time to release the game, because as of right now, there aren’t many competitors. It could easily go over the 2 million mark with a strong marketing campaign. Nintendo is making yet another smart choice in spreading their releases out over the course of the year to ensure that they do not compete with one another. There is nothing else in September of 2022 that will compete with it; it’s all on its own. Aside from that though, this was the only enormous announcement that Nintendo made during the direct. Sure, they announced they are remaking Mario Kart tracks for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as paid DLC, but, that’s honestly not that exciting. Nintendo Switch Sports will sell like crazy, but this wasn’t an entirely unexpected move on Nintendo’s part. In fact, it should have happened earlier.
Mario Strikers: Battle League looks like a lot of fun, but it’s much more of a casual title. We’ve already seen Splatoon 3 and while Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes looks interesting, it won’t have the refined gameplay that Xenoblade 3 will have. There were some great games shown during the direct, but they all fail to entice gamers the way Xenoblade 3 does. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 single-handedly saved Nintendo’s February Direct.
The game looks enormous, the landscapes are breathtaking, and it’s epic in scale. You cannot ask for anything more than this. The Xenoblade franchise has far long surpassed Final Fantasy in the world of RPGs, and if the third installment of the Xenoblade series is anything like its predecessors, it will be second to none. Nintendo had a solid Direct, but without Xenoblade Chronicles 3, this Direct would have been viewed as a failure. The direct went to being a 5/10 to a 10/10. Nintendo definitely knew what they were doing here, and with September being almost six months away, there are still plenty of announcements at hand. By that same token though, it was Xenoblade Chronicles 3 which saved Nintendo’s February 2022 Direct and catapulted it into greatness.