Outlined in its Q2 fiscal year 2025 financial results and corporate management policy briefing, president Shuntaro Furukawa discussed how the series performed on the Nintendo Switch compared to the Wii U and 3DS. Alongside Xenoblade Chronicles, franchises like Pikmin, Kirby and Metroid have seen “dramatic sales growth.”

Granted, only Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is available on the Nintendo 3DS, and we don’t know how each title has performed individually. As of December 2022, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition sold 1.88 million, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 sales totalled 2.7 million (not including the DLC, Torna – The Golden Country). Xenoblade Chronicles 3, meanwhile, sold 1.86 million as of March 2023.

The series should see another significant bump on the Switch, with Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition launching on March 20th, 2025. Stay tuned for more details on its improvements and new content in the coming months.

That post-launch support will be arriving across four waves, and while the first three will bring new quests, hero characters, cosmetics, and more, the fourth wave will bring with it a large-scale story expansion. What exactly can we expect from it in terms of size and scale though.

There’s still a ways to go before it’s time for Nintendo and Monolith Soft to begin talking about the expansion in earnest (the base game isn’t even out yet), but during a recent interview published by Nintendo, producer Genki Yokota said that Monolith Soft intends to make Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s expansion similar in scope to the expansion that was released for its predecessor- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country.

“This is something to consider after you have played this game, but we are offering an additional Expansion Pass,” Yokota said. “We will be adding a new story at the end of the Expansion Pass, and we are thinking of making its volume of content as large as Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country. We hope that those who enjoyed that content, as well as newcomers, will pick it up. It will be quite a high volume of content that will not let you down.”

Torna – The Golden Country was a meaty piece of content, and could take about 20 hours to finish. Depending on how much you engaged with exploration and side quests, that could also stretch to 25-30 hours, while completionists could easily spend 35-40 hours with it. If the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 expansion is similar in size, fans would be happy with that.

Of course, it’ll be a while before we know more for sure. Nintendo has said that the expansion will launch by the end of 2023, which is a large window, so we might be waiting a while.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 itself, meanwhile, launches tomorrow, July 29, for the Nintendo Switch. And it apparently won’t be the last game in the series- read more on that through here.

As the Xenoblade Chronicles series celebrates its 10th anniversary, it’s an interesting franchise to reflect back upon. There’s now been three different games and one major standalone expansion encompassing it, and all three are very distinct in their look and tone. If you want to even get deeper in the weeds, the sames are also part of a spiritual lineage to Xenogears and the Xenosaga franchise, where they share a variety of themes and imagery. What connects them all? Well, it seems it’s less about the story and more about the world you are in.

In an interview with VG24/7, Writer and Director Tetsuya Takahashi was asked what it was that made a “Xeno” game. There he said that while there are some familiar story beats and characters, for him the true connection is the immersive worlds the game encompasses and how it aims to suck players in. He acknowledges there is some more direct connection (those who have played through Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 are aware of that), but it seems for him the focus is more of a spiritual connection of shared ideas and those direct story connections can be changed.

“The stories and characters that appear in the Xenoblade Chronicles series vary with each entry, but the same concept is shared among them all; it is players immersing themselves in the game world, and freely walking around and adventuring in it. Maybe it would be better to rephrase and say that the concept is to get players to want to remain in the game world. We’ve kept this concept unchanged since Xenogears, although the Xenosaga series might be the only one of these series that doesn’t follow that concept.

“From the beginning, each entry in the Xenoblade Chronicles series has depicted a single episode within the flow of a larger time and space. So they are, at their roots, closely connected with each other, but we’re flexible with changing the means and ways in which we depict this in each entry.

“Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are like two sides of the same coin which might be why it feels like the connection between them seems to be particularly standing out.”

The latest entry in the series, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is available now for Nintendo Switch. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and its expansion are also on the Switch, with Xenoblade Chronicles X still only currently on the Wii U.

Inner Agent 3 – Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion

Accessible only when all 80 challenges and the final event have been cleared in the Octo Expansion, Inner Agent 3 challenges you to “surpass the hero within”. Bombs galore, an infinite ink tank, the ability to fly and bombard you from above, splashdowns with huge impact radius – Inner Agent 3 can do it all and then some. And make no mistake – all of these attacks hurt.

Monolith Soft has released new updates for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna- The Golden Country, the stand-alone expansion for the former. The update for Xenoblade 2 is fairly minor, and doesn’t really add or change much; Torna, on the other hand, gets a pretty hefty number of changes.

Among the changes added to Torna are issues fixed with the Affinity Chart, issues fixed with the Community Chart requirements, and a whole host of bugs and glitches squashed in quest progression and battle mechanics. As always, you can check out the full patch notes for yourself below for both games.

Thankfully, unlike with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which launched with a fair host of errors and omissions at launch, which were then patched up over the ensuing year with a series of patches, Torna launched relatively polished, so we don’t have to wait for major updates for its issues to be addressed.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna- The Golden Country are available now for Nintendo Switch. If you haven’t yet picked up Torna, maybe our review for it will convince you to make the jump.

Version 2.0.1

• Issues Fixed
  • Fixed an issue with the rare blade Dagas, causing the driver he is bonded with to change mistakenly.
    • Downloading the update will not reset to the original bonded driver.We apologize for the inconvenience, but please use features such as Overdrive to change bonded drivers.
  • Fixed an issue causing Rex’s outfit to not appear correctly during the ending scenes of the game.
• Issues Fixed in the Expansion Pass and Torna – The Golden Country
  • Fixed an issue with the Affinity Chart, in which completing it did not cause Trust to become S rank, and the completion reward item was subsequently not earned.
    • After downloading the update, checking the Affinity Chart again will cause Trust to increase to S rank and give the player the completion reward item.
  • Fixed an issue with the third requirement to “Meet characters from the Community List” for receiving Jin’s Affinity Reward, “Mineralogy.” This issue prevented characters that had been met in event scenes or cut scenes to not be counted as “met” unless the player talked to them outside those scenes.
    • This applied to the characters Popolo, Onyx, Kaleena, and Leo.
    • After downloading the update, if you have already viewed the necessary event or cut scenes, these characters will automatically be counted as “met.”
  • Added a help message to the quest “A Rare Sense of Justice” that will appear when conditions to advance the quest have not been met.
  • Fixed an issue when performing a Chain Attack that temporarily prevented character selection after a “round” of attacks had been completed.
  • Fixed an issue causing a character switch to take too long when selecting Brighid for a Chain Attack after she had used her Confining Flames ability.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a flawed, but great game, a description that applies almost equally well to its standalone expansion Torna- The Golden Country. Torna- The Golden Country is a standalone prequel to the events that occur in the main game, depicting the Great Aegis War from over 500 years ago that ravaged two continents and scarred the world of Alrest forever.

It’s a great expansion of the amazingly well realized world that Monolith Soft created in the base game, and if you have not yet jumped in already, Nintendo has put out a brand new overview trailer for the game, showing off its characters, story, and battle system, among other things, not to mention a whole host of gameplay footage, to try and get you on board. Your can check it out for yourself below. Do bear in mind that there may be some spoilers here if you have not yet completed Xenoblade 2.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna- The Golden Country is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.

https://youtu.be/xUSCUlKYk2E

If you’re ready, then let’s get started!

COLLECTIBLES

There are a number of collectibles to find in the game, and these can be used  to increase affinity towards blades. You can find below the full list of collectibles that can be found in this expansion.

Wingberry Cake – Jin 

To get the Wingberry Cake, you will need a few items and these are Ruska Flour, Cranberry Bell, Lactonut, Melosian Honey, and Weeping Flour. You can get Ruska Flour in Hoary Weald Camp, in Gormott. Check around the northern part of this area, and you will be able to find three points where you can collect this. As for the Lactonut,it grows in Torna in the Aletta area. You will be able to get Melosian Honey in the same place that you got Ruska Flour from. Finally, you can get Weeping Flour from the collection points in Torigoth Village.

Community Spirit- Minoth

You need the Memento Bark and some Sticky Stick Insects to get this item. You can find the Memento Bark in Gormott, in the Hidden Hunting Camp. As for the Sticky Stick Insect, you can find it also in Gormott, but in Torigoth Arch.

Galaxy Charm- Lora

For the Galaxy Charm, you will require a Ripple Lens,  Moramora Pearl, and a Planetary Crystal. The Ripple Lens can be found in Gormott at the Hoary Weald Camp. You can find the Moramora Peral in Torna in the Aletta Region. As for the Planetary Crystal, it can be found at the Torigoth Arch in Gormott.

Miracle Parfait- Mythra

For this item, you need the Lactonut, Melosian Honey, Nest Extract, and Moonbeam Banana. You already know how to get the Lactonut and Melosian Honey since you needed these for the Wingberry Cake as well. For the Nest Extract, you can get it in Torna, in the Aletta region. As for the Moonbeam Banana, it can be found in Gormott, to the south of Lyanna Meadow at the Lakeshore Campfire.

Golden Land Talisman- Haze

For this, you will need Bladed Holly, Golden Sand Cocoon, Angel’s Sage, Cotton Branch, and Shepherds’ Coronet. All of these items except for Cotton Branch can be found in the same area: just go to the Dannagh Region in Torna and then travel to the Turqos Plateau. You will be able to find these items in and around this area. As for the Cotton Branch, head out to the Outrider’s Forest Trail in the Dannagh Region in Torna and you can find this item there.

FAST TRUST FARMING

There is a method you can use to gain huge trust rewards quickly in the game. To do so, you will first have to  get your  hands on some necessary items. The first of these is the Hunter’s Chemistry III and it is dropped by Lapis Vang in Gormott that are between level 36 and 38. The place is east of Valafum Hill and northeast of Singbreeze Bough.

The next item you need is Hugo’s Heart Compass and you get it as a quest reward for completing the quest ‘Salvage the Salvager’ from Dudan. The other item you need is Addam’s Telepathic Bell and it is a quest reward for ‘Trail of Destruction’ from Bry and/or Kaym. Once you have crafted both these items, give +50 Trust when you reach max affinity which brings the Trust Reward to +110.Once you have both items crafted, equip Hunter’s Chemistry on all your characters and attack weak enemies with Arts to kill them quickly. This will allow you to instantly hit max affinity and also gain huge Trust Rewards.

HOW TO LEVEL UP FAST

You will earn experience in the game just by fighting enemies you come across, but this isn’t the most effective way to level up. There are a lot of side quests available in this expansion and they are the best way to level up in the game. You can find side quests marked with a blue marker on your map. Whenever you find yourself under-leveled, just complete a few side quests and you will level up in no time. The video below will show you how you can get from level 50 to level 99 in the game.

How To Level Up Your Community

In this expansion, raising your Community Level is very important as it gives you access to new quests along with other bonuses. Initially, the only way you can add characters to your Community is by completing side quests for them. However, later on, you will be able to get some characters for your community by just talking to them. You will see these characters marked with a smiley face next to them, so make sure you talk to them to get them to join your community.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

All About Combat

The combat is pretty much the same system as you saw in the game, and you’ll know what to expect if you’ve ever played an MMO. You will just auto-attack an enemy when you target them, and once you’ve attacked them enough, you will be able to use Arts. Arts gain charge as you deal damage with auto-attacks, and these are special abilities that can deal massive damage to enemies. Once you use Arts, they will have to be charged up again before they can be used again.

By using enough Arts, you get to charge up Specials which are even more powerful abilities than Arts. Things are pretty simple up to this point. It gets a little more complicated with having to cancel actions at times. Basically, you can cancel auto attacks into Arts and you can also cancel Arts into Specials. You will want to use Action Cancels because they are much faster and it also charges Specials faster, but keep in mind that the action cancel has to be used on the last strike of an auto attack animation or after the animation for an Art is over. you can use Action Cancel in various ways, such as when switching blades to speed up the game for yourself, so keep trying it out to see what results you get.

Vanguard And Blade Switching

Vanguard Switching is a system whereby you can switch between controlling a Driver or Blade in between battle. Once the Rear Guard gauge is full, you will be able to perform this switch. Apart from giving you direct control of your Blade, this will also result in a Switch Art which is a powerful move. Furthermore, when you first use the Vanguard Switch, the Blade’s Arts will already be charge for use once. You can also switch between blades in combat, but there is a cooldown when in the middle of a combat.

Affinity, Combos, And More

You can increase affinity by having Driver and Blade fight close to each other and also by having them follow up on each other’s attacks. This will basically make them more effective in battle. In battle, there are also Talent Arts you can use at any time in battle but these are usually a trade-off. For example, you may be able to deal damage to an enemy by also losing some health.

There are various kinds of combos in the game such as Driver Combos and Blade Combos. Driver Combos allow you to inflict negative status effects on enemies while also getting some HP Potions and increased damage. With Blade Combos, you will have to use Specials in increasing levels. Once your party’s specials are charged, you will be prompted to initiate the Blade Combo, and that’s it. You can also learn to pull off special Blade Combos by chaining together Specials of certain elements. By using Blade Combos, you will charge up a gauge for Chain Attacks. Once the gauge is full, you can use Chain Attacks, and there will be elemental orbs to destroy. You can destroy the orb by using an opposite element Arts attack. When unleashing Chain Attacks, enemies can’t retaliate, so it can be very useful in getting some damage dealt. Chain Attacks are made up of rounds and as you destroy an elemental orb, you will get another round of attacks.

For using Chain Attacks, you will be able to fill up the Full Burst gauge and a Full Burst attack deals even more damage. If you manage to defeat an enemy when using a Chain Attack, you will enter Overkill which will grant extra XP, WP, and SP from  killing the enemy.

Slate Pieces Locations

You will need Slate Pieces to access the Cavern of the Seal in Torna. The locations for each of these pieces are listed below.

• Leaden Slate Piece: Found in Tornan Titan Interior
• Dawning Slate Piece: Found in the Lasaria Region in Mernes Falls
• Indigo Slate Piece:  Found in the Lasaria Region in Porton Village
• Crimson Slate Piece:  Found in the Lasaria Region in Feltley Village
• Scarlet Slate Piece: Found in the Aletta Region in Hyber Village
• Moss-Green Slate Piece: Found in Auresco, Royal Capital in the Orem Storage Ward
• Peach Slate Piece: Found in the Dannagh Region in Loftin Nature Preserve
• Rusty Slate Piece: Found in the Lasaria Region in Yanchik Harbor
• Purple Slate Piece: Found in the Aletta Region in Aletta: Militia Garrison
• Chestnut Slate Piece: Found in the Aletta Region in Tirkin Cliff Colony
• Hollyhock Slate Piece: Found in the Aletta Region in Lake Sarleigh
• Navy-Blue Slate Piece: Found in the Aletta Region in Hyber Village
• Inky Slate Piece: Found in the Tornan Titan Interior
• Cherry Slate Piece: Found in the Dannagh Region in Verdant Fairylands
• Cinnabar Slate Piece: Found in the Aletta Region in Cavern of the Seal
• Dark-Grey Slate Piece: Found in Auresco, Royal Capital in Sachsum Gardens

Barney Stone Locations

There are four different Barney Stones to find and you can find their locations below.

• Another can be found in the Aletta Region in Torna. It can found to the north of Ossum Magnum in Millennium Grotta.
• One of them can be found in Torna in the Lasaria Region just to the south of Secluded Boneway.
• Another of the stones can be found in the Lasaria Region in Torna to the north east of Yanchik Harbor.
• Finally, one stone can be found in the Dannargh Region. It can be found to the east of Dannargh Desert in Titan’s Ulcer.

Unique Monsters Locations

You can find below the list of powerful unique monsters in the game along with their locations.

• Hurricane Anise: This is a level 100 monster and can be found at Pedestal of Stargazing.
• Erratic Goliante: This level 45 monster can be found at Saints’ Practice Grounds.
• Scowing Quincy: This level 25 monster can be found at Tirkin Cliff Colony.
• Sentinel Capathia: This level 65 monster can be found at Feltley Village.
• Gourmand Galgan: This level 38 monster can be found at Wrackham Moor.
• Flying Fortress Desmor: This is a level 55 monster that can be found in Turqos Plateu.
• Sleepwalker Mork: This level 33 monster can be found in Peln in Pilgrims Springland.
• Mesmer Tlaloc: This level 85 monster can be found in Streamsand Corridor.
• Overaffectionate Murph: This level 18 monster can be found in Lascham Cove.
• Handwringing Bigelow: This level 25 monster can be found in Serene Springside.
• Nomadic Rusholme: This level 44 monster can be found at Behemoth’s Roost.
• Ravine Bunnit: This level 50 monster can be found at Hoary Weld Camp.
• Harbinger Cavill: This level 23 monster can be  found at Haradd Hills.
• Lunar Amaruq: This level 33 monster can be found at Hyber Village at night.
• Sequestered Ludd: This level 48 monster can be found at Pulsating Passage.
• Beatific Ophelia: This level 48 monster can be found at night in Loftin Nature Preserve.
• Interceptor Grace: This level 40 monster can be found at The Great Breaksand.
• Inospheric Mitchell: This level 50 monster can be found at Feltley Village.
• Herculean Gibson: This level 75 monster can be found at Wrackham Moor.
• Everdark Erg: This level 36 monster can be found in Lasaria Woodland.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a fantastic JRPG, and one of the best games on the Switch. One of the ways it achieves that is a rich sense of world building and history, which imbues the whole adventure with a sense of dramatism and mystery that it otherwise would not have. The new standalone expansion for the game, Torna The Golden Country, which is available now, delves deeper into that history.

The expansion gets into the Great Aegis War that took place 500 years before the events in Xenoblade 2, detailing the tragedies that befell the doomed heroes involved in that conflict. It’s a great adventure, but given its structure, which is sidequest driven, it can often feel aimless, or lead to the player getting stuck.

Which is where we come in. The video walkthrough below will walk you through the whole thing, also showing you how to complete quests, where to find quests, and how to beat the bosses. Just remember, it has spoilers, so be careful.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a fantastic JRPG that rounded out the Switch’s launch year wonderfully well, and also went on to become the most successful game ever released by developers Monolith Soft. With the sheer amount of success and acclaim that the game has received, you would think that the next thing Monolith would want to do would be to follow up on it.

And they have, sort of. Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna- The Golden Country is a new standalone expansion developed which acts as a prequel to the main game, and tells the story of the Aegis War we see referenced within it a whole lot. But what about an actual, proper, honest-to-goodness Xenoblade Chronicles 3? Surely that is in the works too?

As it turns out, no. Speaking to Nintendo Life, Tetsuya Takahashi of Monolith Soft, the creator and executive producer of the Xenoblade series, confirmed that as of right now, there are no plans in place to continue the franchise.

“At Monolith Soft we’re constantly thinking of new things we want to create, and that, of course, includes the Xenoblade series, but at present, we have no firm plans for continuing the series,” he said.

Monolith’s new game is presumably a new IP, and it’s fine that they want to focus on that for now, but I do hope that eventually, they will return to Xenoblade. That universe is too rich, and the franchise too successful, for it to be abandoned right at the moment of its greatest success.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is out now on Nintendo Switch.

With the new, standalone expansion for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Torna~The Golden Country now being live, Monolith Soft has also launched a brand new update for the Switch exclusive RPG to update it with compatibility for the DLC. Update 2.00 is a big one all around, as the version designation suggests, featuring a bunch of changes and improvements across the board that fans and players will undoubtedly appreciate.

The update fixes an issue where in certain quests, players would have to defeat certain enemy types to trigger event scenes. Functionality for The Golden Country, as I mentioned, has also been added to the game’s title screen, as has the functionality for receiving the final set of items that come with the game’s expansion pass. You can see the full patch notes below (as provided by Nintendo).

We also got a brand new piece of art done by main character designer Masatsugu “saitom” Saito, featuring all the characters he designed in one image. It’s a really cool piece, and fans will undoubtedly appreciate it. If your favorite characters are missing from it, however, it’s not favouritism- Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had a lot of artists working on designing characters for it, and Saito’s new piece only includes the ones he personally created (which is still quite a few). You can check it out for yourself below.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2, as well as Torna~The Golden Country are out now on Nintendo Switch.

Version 2.0.0

• Issues Fixed
  • Fixed an issue occurring in quests where defeating specific enemies was necessary to complete the quest. Following battle with the enemy, this issue caused certain event scenes not to play or to suffer from extended loading, preventing quest progress.

Changes and New Features

• Functionality has been added to the title screen to make the Expansion Pass story scenario “Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country” playable.
  • Torna – The Golden Country is an additional story that takes place 500 years prior to the events of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Play as Jin—Rex’s main adversary and leader of the mystery-shrouded society of Torna—in a bygone era and uncover the truth about the lost Tornan titan and the origins of the Aegis. Delve into new gameplay mechanics like Vanguard Switch, a tactic that allows you to switch between the front and back lines during a battle, and Community, a feature that lets you deepen your connection with the inhabitants of Alrest.
• Added functionality for receiving the final round of items associated with the Expansion Pass.
• Elma’s Overdrive ability is now usable during battle when the auto-battle option is initially set to Enabled, but the player switches to manual controls during battle.
  • Elma is now a blade who can join your party during the “Challenge Battle: Nopondemonium” in the Expansion Pass.