Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will take center stage at this week's Nintendo Direct on Wednesday. The Japanese publisher confirmed the date and time in a tweet earlier today, surprisingly dedicating an entire Direct to a single game.
"'Xenoblade 3 Direct 2022.6.22' will be broadcast from 23:00 on June 22nd (Wednesday)," wrote Nintendo. The stream will last 20 minutes. No other games were mentioned in the announcement, although it's certainly possible that Nintendo will throw in a few smaller trailers to pad those 20 minutes out.
Xenoblade has become an increasingly popular franchise, especially on the Switch. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition allowed new players to get into the decades-spanning franchise and will directly tie into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 along with Xenoblade 2 and its expansion, Torna - The Golden Country.
How the games will all tie together in 3 hasn't been explicitly stated, but we recently got to see two regions from the upcoming sequel. The first was a "vast grasslands" known as Millick Meadows, a region that looks suspiciously like Bionis’ Leg in Xenoblade Chronicles. The second was an arid region called Eagus Wilderness, which could be the Fallen Arm region of Chronicles, especially given the presence of a "giant mechanical finger."
Other recent info drops included a brief snippet of Xenoblade 3's initial moments, introducing us to the two main characters of Noah and Ethel. Childhood friends that later became bitter rivals, Ethel saved Noah from an Agnian attack when they much younger. "Since then, Noah and his friends have looked up to her, so why does she now see them as enemies?"
A combat trailer also revealed the new systems of Xenoblade Chronicles 3. For starters, players will be able to control up to six characters, with each character falling into one of three roles: Attacker, Defender, or Healer. Players will have to manage team formations, move particular characters to where they're needed most, and ensure that everyone is performing their intended roles through the new Target Line system.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 arrives on July 29 only on the Nintendo Switch.