Video Game / Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

All spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles 1, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and the main game of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Seize the future you desire. ^note L-to-R: Nikol, Glimmer, A, Matthew, Rex, and Shulk

"Is this how badly you wish to erase us... my God?"

— Z

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed^note 新たなる未来 or "A New Future" in Japanese is the Interquel Expansion Pack to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, part of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. It is developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch, released on April 25, 2023.

Set in the past of Aionios over a thousand years before the events of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Future Redeemed follows Matthew, a young man who is searching for his sister Na'el after the destruction of the original City by the Moebius N. Accompanied by the mysterious A, who wields a blade capable of harming the Moebius, his journey leads him to the Liberators, a group of rebels led by two old swordsmen named Shulk and Rex, as well as Nikol and Glimmer, two soldiers of Keves and Agnus respectively who Matthew frees from their flame clock. And at the end of it all is a mysterious entity named Alpha, who is referred to as "God" by Z and is connected to the pasts of both Shulk and Rex...

Trailers: Teaser and Release Date Trailer.

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These tropes are full-o'-beans!:

• 100% Completion: New to this expansion is the "Affinity" system, whereby completing tasks awards points that can be spent on each character's skill-tree. Finding collectables, defeating new monster types, reaching new locations, and bonding with every named resident of Colony 9 count towards completion. Unlike the base-game, the expansion comes with a helpful checklist that keeps track of your progress. The hardest task is defeating all five Superboss fights. The one activity that doesn't grant any Affinity points is crafting and upgrading new gems.
• Ability Mixing: Fusion Arts return from the main game with a few differences. Since everyone's classes are locked, the arts on the left side are referred to as Ouroboros Powers. When fused, Ouroboros Powers combine their effects with the character's regular Art and either gain additional effects or change effect entirely depending on which Art they're fused with. Fusion Arts are also used to charge Unity attacks.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: While in the main game the only weapon accessible to the heroes that can break Flame Clocks is Noah's Lucky Seven (and Sword of the End in Noah's interlinked form), during the events of Future Redeemed there were in fact several swords that had this same power. Namely Rex, Shulk, and A's Blades. While he only speaks specifically of Lucky Seven and Shulk's Monado REX+, Riku's words on them indicate that all these weapons share in common certain aspects that enable them to cut what is normally indestructible, namely a connection to Origin, the souls/powers that run through it, and the Trinity Processor.
• Action Prologue: While we don't get to see the fight unfold, Future Redeemed opens up with Shulk, Rex, and Z confronting Alvis. Matthew and A's introduction plays this straighter as they're immediately shown fighting a monster.
• Ambiguously Related: Future Redeemed introduces several major characters who all bear a resemblance to characters from the previous titles, but never definitively says if they are indeed related to them, keeping it vague and having the characters who would know the answer silent for various reasons. Although A at least states that Nikol is Shulk's child and Glimmer is Rex's, and it is all-but-confirmed that Nikol's mother is Fiora. Likewise it’s all but explicitly stated that Glimmer is Pyra’s daughter; the strongest evidence being the family photo shown during the ending of the main game. ^note Pyra's baby is the only one of Rex’s children that is depicted with the same hair color as Glimmer. While Glimmer has similar personality to Mythra, the photo depicts Mythra’s baby with distinctive blonde hair instead of red. Aside from those two the rest of the characters' parentage is either heavily implied, or left in the air.
  • Panacea shares features (and Japanese VA) with Sharla, including her skin tone and a mole in the same place. Her name is a medical term, alluding to Sharla's profession as a medic. Given that the first game ends with a Maybe Ever After between her and Reyn, it's very likely he is her father.
  • Linka has the same green hair, style of glasses, (complete) Core Crystal, and even Japanese voice actor as Pandoria. Her snarky, earnest personality resembles a mix of Pandoria and Zeke as well.
  • Riku claims that his "Dadapon" was a traveling companion with Melia. What makes his ambiguous is that this can refer to either Riki in the main game of Xenoblade Chronicles (with whom he shares a similar name) or Kino in the Future Connected expansion (with whom he shares a stronger visual resemblance).
  • Averted in the case of Matthew and Na'el's heritage; in the main game, Lanz and Sena remark how they look like Noah and Mio respectively. Future Redeemed indeed confirms that they are the great-grandchildren of the Noah and Mio who became N and M; the fact that they are related to N, who kills their grandfather, also known as the son that N and M left behind, is a crucial part of their story.
• Ambiguous Situation: Towards the end of Chapter 5, the Saviorite/Salvator faction from 2 is mentioned once again, this time as being under the leadership of Dmitri Yuriev. While there is a connection between the two, as indicated by the Xenosaga copyright notice for the game, what that exact connection entails is a mystery, given that this Yuriev existed thousands of years before the events of Xenosaga would've taken place.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If you die on a boss fight, you're given the opportunity to retry from the boss directly, which throws you into the menu where you can regear and spend affinity points before trying again. What makes it an AFF is that this also applies to the Moebius W fight, which Glimmer, Shulk and Rex all join in the cutscene preceding. If that boss kills you and you retry, you'll find them available for equipping in the menu too. By a similar token, this applies to the Final Boss as well, where dying on the 2nd form not only lets you start from there, but also allows you to equip the 11th-Hour Ranger^spoilersNa'el.
  • Late in the game, you can find an item that lets you change the weather when you fast travel, letting you run into any Unique Monsters that only spawn during certain weather. Additionally, unlike in the base game, fast traveling will be automatically set to whichever time of day it currently is, rather than defaulting to morning.
  • The X-Reader adds several useful features that can be unlocked through easily obtained upgrades.
    • The Treasure Sensor causes the mini-map to flash and beep when the player is near a container or a relic, which is especially handy because many of them are hidden from view. The Key Item Sensor does the same for Key Items.
    • After being absent since the first game, Future Redeemed finally reintroduces the ability to see how enemies detect the player through the Sense Analysis upgrade.
    • Arts Analysis adds an ! to an Art's icon when the Art's condition, such as attacking from a certain direction, has been fulfilled, a feature that was previously used in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition.
  • Getting the necessary items from enemies is much easier since each enemy only drops one type of item, and most of them are always the same rarity. The Enemypaedia further eases things by listing what item each enemy drops, the rarity of said item, how likely the rarity is if the enemy can drop more than one, and which area the enemy can be found. If a Gem, upgrade, or recipe is pinned, the enemy that drops the necessary item will have an icon next to it on the Enemypaedia as well as the field.
  • In the main game, it was possible for the interval between auto-attacks to be shorter than the animation, meaning in order to attack at max speed, the player would have to move a bit after each auto-attack to cancel the animation. Future Redeemed addresses this by having anything that increases auto-attack speed to also speed up the animation, allowing the player to attack at full speed while standing still.
  • The Growth Reset Kit allows you to reset a character's Affinity Growth and regain any Affinity Points you've spent, and it can be used as much as you want. This is handy if you really need a character to learn a specific ability for a fight and ran out of Affinity Points.
• Arc Welding: In the final chapter, mentions of the Earthlife Colonization Project, the Coalition Government, Project Exodus, one Dimitri Yuriev and his Saviorite/Salvator faction, and Philadelphia-class Motherships in the last few cutscenes imply that the main Xenoblade Chronicles games exist in the same Broad Strokes universe/multiverse as Xenoblade Chronicles X, Xenosaga, and Xenogears, formally bridging all of Tetsuya Takahashi's works together.
• Artificial Limbs: Shulk has a robotic arm, as previously described in his Founder statue in the main game. Given he still has his arm when confronting Alvis with Rex and Z, it's likely he lost it either during or after that fight.
• Art Shift: A flashback to Shulk finding the Core Crystal of Ontos on the beach some time after the end of the first game, uses the style of 1 Definitive Edition.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Just as the base game was no stranger to Chain Order Shout Outs^note Lanz's Tyrant Wave is an overt reference to Sol Badguy's Tyrant Rave, Shulk and Rex's Chain Order pose which has them standing together with their arms crossed is a reference to the Takahashiposting meme, more specifically the version that includes Mio with her arms crossed next to him.
  • In addition, Matthew and Rex's Chain Order pose has Matthew doing a pose referencing the I'm not gonna sugercoat it meme, while Rex is in the Gainax Pose.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Some enemies receive more damage when they're attacked from certain directions, which can be discovered by unlocking the Weakness Sensor on the X-Reader.
• Back for the Finale: As the Grand Finale of the "Klaus saga", Future Redeemed brings back several people and places strongly connected to the overall Myth Arc of the series:
  • Shulk and Rex make their returns after both being absent from the base game of 3.
  • Ontos returns after being entirely absent from 2, 3, and their respective expansions - but not as Alvis, and instead returns as Alpha and A.
  • Prison Island from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 returns after being assumed to have been destroyed with the rest of the Bionis. Similarly, the original Colony 9 and Valak Mountain return from the first game, as well as the Kingdom of Tantal and the Cliffs of Morytha from 2, with all five regions combining to form the Cent-Omnia Region of Aionios.
  • The World Tree returns in a recreation of Klaus' world within Origin's Memory Space, but as its original form as a space elevator. Similarly, the Memory Space shifts to show the Land of Morytha as the ruined version of Klaus' world when A tells Na'el the truth of what happened to Earth.
  • Pneuma and Logos are all but explicitly confirmed to have been powering both Matthew's Gauntlets that eventually became Noah's sheathe for Lucky Seven, and N's Sword of the End respectively, after both Pyra/Mythra and Malos being missing from 3.
  • In a cross-series example, Dmitri Yuriev from Xenosaga is mentioned during the Klaus' world sequence, and by a radio made by Vector Industries, no less.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Matthew and A encounter Nikol and Glimmer and get them to stop fighting, two Moebius Consuls warp into the fray in order to stop them. While the two Consuls re-use the appearances of Consuls H and E, their names are actually Q and R, and end up killed by Matthew and A's weapons, making them distinct characters from any of the Consuls of their appearances and names from the main game's time period.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: One of the returning areas is the Daksha Shrine, complete with an Affinity scene of Shulk talking about how his entire party was mildly traumatised by the Clifftop Bayern ambush. As a cute nod to it, the game includes an Igna gank squad hiding behind the ruins... and silently drops a gigantic Unique Gogol right behind you while you're fighting them.
• Belated Happy Ending: For 3's own Bittersweet Ending. The Stinger explicitly shows the two worlds merging after Origin was restored, thus confirming that Ouroboros and everyone from the two worlds won't be separated for long and that the people of the City will be reborn on the new world, overriding the in-universe fears of many characters in 3 and the ambiguity of the ending.
• Big Brother Instinct: Matthew's motivation through the game is to find his younger sister, Na'el.
• Bittersweet Ending: The ending is generally more sweet than bitter, with the context of the main game in mind.
  • The Founders, the Liberators, and N team up to defeat Alpha, saving Aionios and the old worlds. However, in order to keep Origin running, Shulk, Rex, and A sacrifice themselves to act as the new Trinity Processor, granting full control over Origin to Z and robbing the resistance against Moebius of their greatest allies, though Shulk and Rex are confident that Moebius will be overthrown eventually. Alpha reminds Matthew that rejecting him has made the future uncertain. However, Matthew takes this in stride, having faith in the future.
  • The Founders with the Liberators and scattered City people form the new City, with Matthew departing to parts unknown but promising to return one day. According to Matthew's statue, this is the last anyone from the City ever sees of him, but he went on to have descendants who eventually returned to the City centuries later.
  • As The Stinger reminds us, Ouroboros will oust Z and restore Bionis and Alrest, validating the faith of the Founders and the Liberators. Not only that, but the ending reveals that the worlds merge into one properly after Origin is rebooted, giving hope that the City people will be reborn in a better world, as Na'el and even Alpha wanted.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: The strongest Superboss, Fogdweller Abaasy, reduces damage by an additional 50% when it blocks an attack. Since blocking already reduces damage by 50%, this means any attack it blocks only does 1 point of damage, even if the character uses an Armor-Piercing Attack.
• Bookends:
  • The beginning and finale of the "Klaus Saga" involves Ontos/Alvis, who outright said at the end of the first game that "I was here at the beginning, and I will proclaim the end". In particular, the final boss of both 1 and Future Redeemed are against a god-like entity who wields Ontos' Monado.
  • The ending song "Future Awaits" is sung by Joanne Hogg, who sung the ending song of Xenogears, "Small Two of Pieces", making for a book ending of Tetsuya Takahashi's games.
  • Two major locations visited in the story are ones straight from 1, the original Colony 9 and Prison Island. In the case of Prison Island, it ends up being an important destination on the way to the Final Battle in both 1 and Future Redeemed.
  • The very first playable battle of the "Klaus Saga" had the player controlling Dunban as he was wielding the Monado I. The final playable battle of the "Klaus Saga" has Alpha wielding the Monado I, with an enlarged version of it appearing for his One-Winged Angel form.
  • The first cutscene of the first game began with the Bionis and the Mechonis battling each other, ending with the two impaling each other with their swords. The final cutscene of the "Klaus Saga" begins with the first Ouroboros Interlink and Alpha nearly recreating that moment...but with the Ouroboros Interlink instead punching out Alpha in the face as Alpha tries to impale them with a variant of the same sword wielded by the Bionis.
  • 1 and Future Redeemed both have cutscenes near the end where the camera focuses on Alvis' eye as they talk about a happy future they've seen for the cast.
• The Bus Came Back: A younger (and much lower-leveled than usual) Territorial Rotbart shows up as an Unique Monster fight, explaining why his role had been taken over by Jingoistic Gigantus in the main game. Matthew's party defeated it long before Noah's could and even if they didn't, the destruction of Cent-Omnia definitely did.
• Call-Back:
  • A destroying the Flame Clocks during the Colony Gamma vs Colony 5 battle is a shot-for-shot recreation of Alvis's battle with the Telethia in Makna Forest, complete with Nikol (Shulk's son) in the same position relative to the camera that Shulk himself was. It's an early hint that A is a piece of Alvis.
  • Shulk's older appearance in the game heavily resembles that of the Architect/Klaus in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, albeit less elderly — which references the fact that Shulk matched the appearance of Klaus, who appears during a flashback in Future Redeemed.
  • Rex's introduction has him refer to Nikol as "kid" using the same Japanese term (小僧/kozou, "brat") that Malos used to refer to him at the beginning of 2.
  • The Relics are rare and ancient treasure troves, often containing really good items. So of course, they take the form of the stone chests found in Giant ruins in 1 and the white chests most often found in 2's Secret Areas. Adding to it, and an interesting inverse to the above, the treasure, usually an Upgrade Kit, has the jingle from a successful salvage from 2, and the recognition for opening a Relic chest is the Secret Area jingle from 1.
  • The Trinity Processor reappears, but now with all three Aegis cores functioning as a part of it. It was first introduced in 2 and shown with the Pneuma (Pyra and Mythra) and Logos (Malos) cores, but the third and final core, Ontos (Alvis) was missing. Alvis also reappears in Future Redeemed after Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition retroactively added a red Aegis core to his model, and that same red core is seen as part of the Trinity Processor here, thus definitively confirming that he was Ontos after years of speculation.
  • When Glimmer asks Rex why he continues to fight and help people even if it has nothing to do with him, Rex's response that it's because he likes to see people smile is almost exactly what he said to Malos when he asked why he continued to fight.
  • When Rex and Shulk challenge Nikol and Glimmer to a fight to show them that their powers are not mature enough to take on Alpha, Rex suggests the ruins behind Colony 9 as their battleground. Attentive players might notice that said ruins are actually the remains of the Gotrock Oracle Ruins, the location at the end of the Cliffs of Morytha where Rex himself summoned Pneuma for the first time and truly awakened as the Master Driver. And sure enough, the kids manage to unlock their own power-up and prove themselves during said fight. In addition, Shulk wields a Monado like Malos, while Rex is fast, strong, uses swords and is from Alrest like Jin. Incidentally, Rex has an affinity scene here with Glimmer, his daughter with Pyra, though with the attitude of her aunt Mythra.
  • The climax of the story has several to the first game:
    • The party travel to Prison Island as in 1 once again - which turned to be deliberate on Alpha's part; Shulk and his friends had previously departed from the Prison Terrace to confront Zanza within the Memory Space of Ontos in the first game, and now Alpha has left a transporter into Origin as a intentional mirroring of those past events.
    • The Prison Terrace once again serves as the site for a confrontation between the party and a powerful being before heading off to confront the Big Bad, but instead of Dickson from the first game, it's now Consul N that is being confronted on the Prison Terrace.
    • Like with the first game, the party is transported to a recreation of Klaus' home universe after the confrontation on the Prison Terrace. But unlike the first game, said recreation is of Earth rather than the Solar System, and specifically of the area that makes up the Rhadamanthus Authority set at the foot of the space elevator to the First Low Orbit Station. Of course, said elevator would end up becoming the World Tree in Alrest, and the Rhadamanthus Authority being in such close proximity to it confirms that it's a past version of the Land of Morytha as seen in 2.
    • A Call-Back solely to 2 also exists during this sequence; the Saviorites are once again mentioned again...but are now said to be under the leadership of Dmitri Yuriev, mirroring how the main twist of 2 was that it was Connected All Along to the first game, with Future Redeemed now doing a similar thing by canonizing Xenosaga.
  • A describes the Great Sword of Cadensia, aka the sword of the Mechonis from 1, as the fulcrum of conflict in every age, alluding to the war between Bionis and Mechonis in 1.
  • The party's battle with N includes a cutscene where Glimmer and Rex leap at him with their weapons forward in a move that mirrors a scene from Rex and Pyra's first battle with Malos.
  • When confronting Alpha, Matthew declares that "this world, it belongs to us", paralleling when Alvis asked Shulk at the end of the first game if the world belongs to them or to Zanza.
  • During the finale Shulk's last conversation with A before they and Rex become the new Trinity Processors is a direct callback to the very last scene of 1, down to the closeup on A/Alvis's eye before they declare that they indeed had seen this happening, though they also clarify that they only see what is in the "flow" but that they are certain that their hope will live on.
  • A couple of sidequests in Colony 9 call back to Colony 9 sidequests from Xenoblade 1, such as one where the party needs to find a lost wedding ring, and another where they help the proprietor of the local curry shop gather ingredients (herself the granddaughter of the curry shop proprietor from the first game).
• Call-Forward:
  • Early in the story, Matthew remarks that he believes in time he will be able to master the Ouroboros power he wields to the point that he will be able to free people from their Flame Clocks without having to destroy the Flame Clock itself. This explains why the Flame Clock of the Lost Colony in the main game was still intact despite its people not being connected to it.
  • Much like the Agnian trio of the main party of 3, Glimmer's first appearance has her wearing her helmet on the battlefield when she encounters Nikol.
  • Matthew, being the scion of House Vandham, sets a few examples his descendants would later follow. He breaks up a fight between Nikol and Glimmer by punching the ground with his fists like Guernica would do to stop Noah and Mio from killing each other and wields fist weapons like Ghondor.
  • Matthew and Na'el's argument over whether or not it's better to continue trying to free the soldiers of Keves and Agnus, or to simply focus on their own in order to lower casualties, foreshadows the ideological differences between Houses Vandham and Doyle in the main game.
  • Shulk mentions hearing of a Consul who likes to experiment with Flame Clocks, alluding to Y and his experiments in Colony Omega.
  • When the party first reaches Colony 9, Glimmer remarks that she thought Colony 9 was in Keves, before Shulk clarifies that they're in the original Colony 9.
  • During the ending, once the Final Boss is beaten, Moebius N expresses doubt over Matthew's team succeeding at defeating Moebius due to their relatively short lifespans. Matthew replies that somebody else could finish the job in that case, and, as N walks away, notes that this could even end up being N himself.
  • Also during the ending, Nikol and Riku start researching the Ouroboros Core for a way to access the Fusion Dance the party performed in the climax at will, but they won't be able to empower as many people at once this way, alluding to Interlinking being carried out by pairs of people in the main game and potentially explaining why there can be only 6 Ouroboros at a time (a limitation that apparently did not exist before this).
  • During the Affinity Scene where Matthew and A observe Cadensia's Great Sword, A mentions that it's hotly contested territory between Keves and Agnus, and Matthew mentions hearing that there was a large-scale battle there some time ago, alluding to the scene in the main game where Monica shows the party the massive amount of husks dotting the base of the sword.
  • In a secret conversation made available by backtracking to Riku's shop late in the game, Riku as a reward for Matthew's services to the world reveals many of his secrets. Moreover, he states that after he has fulfilled his obligations to the City, he plans to insert himself into a Kevesi colony and continue to watch and wait for the person meant to wield Lucky Seven, no matter how long it takes; explaining where we find him in the main game.
• Canon Character All Along: The Saviorite Rebels mentioned in 2 were first seen as a Mythology Gag to the Salvator Faction of Xenosaga that was missed by the localization team. Future Redeemed however reveals that Salvator's leader Dimitri Yuriev also exists, meaning the Saviorites are indeed the Salvators repurposed to fit the world of Xenoblade.
• Canon Immigrant: Dmitri Yuriev and Vector Industries from Xenosaga are both canonized within Xenoblade Chronicles.
• Coincidental Broadcast: When Na'el traps the Liberators in Origin, it takes the form of what looks like an American suburb. While Na'el is trying to convince Matthew that the pre-Conduit Earth is a utopia, a radio broadcast drops some exposition on the harsh realities of that world.
• Combination Attack: Unity Attacks replace Interlinking from the main game. When used on a Launched foe, it inflicts either Burst, Smash, or Blowdown on the enemy. When the whole party is obtained, the player is free to set up any 3 combinations of characters they want.
• Comically Missing the Point: Matthew has a really hard time understanding that Na'el is being controlled by Alpha at Raguel Lake. It... goes on for quite a while. Thankfully, Rex and A are able to keep this from becoming Dramatically Missing the Point.
  Matthew: Na'el... hold up a minute, will ya? Seems there's something really confusing going on here...
• Continuity Cavalcade: The scene where Shulk and Rex tell Matthew about their previous worlds is accompanied by flashback clips of the main parties of the first two games, their main antagonists, as well as a number of different clips from both games and their expansions.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Rex says "I like your attitude, kiddo" and "I'll show 'em a thing or three" to Nikol, a reference to two of his battle lines from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
  • Since Rex and Shulk are party mainstays and direct immigrants from the old worlds, they have a lot of anecdotes to share about the various familiar landmarks you'll encounter during the story. Shulk gets the most, as the DLC contains more 1-themed areas (especially with the main town being his hometown) but Rex also gets his share, such as the ruins of the Lumos Pillar, and when he reminisces about the time the Urayan Titan ate him, Pyra, Tora, and Poppi during 2.
  • As with the base game, Gem Crafting comes into play through Shulk and his reminiscences of the Gem Man's Stall, whereas the resident team cook is Rex, when it was a key mechanic in his game.
  • One of the Kevesi Levnis types you can encounter is called the Naberius Invictus, and physically resembles a smaller version of an infamous Mechon Unique Monster in 1 named Mischievous Naberius.
  • A conversation with Rex about the Ancient Ruins has him discuss their age using Buffy Speak (calling them "ultra-mega-ancient"), harkening back to similar lines of his in 2 such as when he describes Morag and Brighid similarly.
  • Shulk's Monado Cyclone animation is based off the updated Spin Attack animation he has starting from his cameo as a Blade in 2 and in Future Connected, which is also shared by Malos. Meanwhile Alpha also has the same move, but uses the more simplistic animation that Shulk had in the base version of 1.
  • One of Shulk's idle animations is taken from Melia, and another is from the intro scene of Dunban adjusting his wrist at Sword Valley.
  • The design of the book Shulk is shown reading in a cutscene indicates that it's the same one he's shown reading in one of his concept arts from the first game.
  • One of the Heart-to-Hearts in 1 has Riki extol the pleasures of hot springs to Shulk in Valak Mountain. When traversing the Black Mountains, Shulk, who is now in his forties or fifties, will sometimes mention that he would like to visit a hot spring.
  Riki: When Shulk become forty, Shulk understand Riki's hobby.
  Shulk: It's gonna be awhile then...
  * Damage-Sponge Boss: A lot of the superbosses in Future Redeemed have more overall HP then the ones in the base game, with Gotthard, the Ethereal also having particularly high defenses and dozens of millions of HP despite being Level 60.
• Didn't Think This Through: One of the very first sidequests you can get from Colony 9's request board comes from a guy who lost his wedding ring, and is desperately trying to find it before his wife catches on. When you find it, he thanks you... and mentions he's getting scolded anyway, because posting a public request on a billboard in the middle of town might not have been the best way to hide something.
• Distant Finale: The post-credits scene takes place after the ending of 3, which takes place a thousand years after the events of Future Redeemed. There, it shows the results of Origin rebooting and separating the worlds before they merge into one, this time without annihilating each other. Of course, technically this is also less than a second after the start of 3.
• Dramatic Irony: At the end of Chapter 4, the party and Na'el are taken to a recreation of Klaus' world which Na'el views as a paradise where with enough resources to go around for everyone. These statements are deeply ironic to anyone who's completed Xenoblade Chronicles X, as one of the game's central conflicts stems from the fact that Earth did not have enough resources to go around for everyone and that the corrupt Coalition government (which also exists in Klaus's world) favored the already-privileged during Project Exodus's evacuation of Earth, leaving commonfolk like Lao's family to die. There's also the radio broadcast playing in the back ground while she gushes about how perfect this world was describing how Dimitri Yureiv's attempts to pass a human rights bill through the Federation government failed, resulting in the war that destroyed the earth and is implied to be at least part of his Start of Darkness and all the horrible things he does in Xenosaga..
• Early Game Hell: Downplayed as you get the full party generally pretty early, but the first part of the DLC only has Matthew and A as playable characters, making things difficult to really explore or level up since neither character are Defenders. You also don't get Nikol right away when you meet him, and while A can heal decently, early on A won't be enough to offset the amount of potential damage a player could take. Once the full party assembles and the player gets to Colony 9, the game becomes more manageable and easier to progress.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The final trailer appears to show Z teaming up with Shulk and Rex to face off against Alvis. In the game proper, it's revealed that Moebius and the Liberators have a non-aggression pact in order to fight Alpha. Neither party likes each other, but recognize that they need to ensure the world remains so something can be done after.
  • N allies with the Founders and the Liberators to fight Alpha, not wanting his and Mio's lives to be washed away by the AI's machinations.
• Expansion Pack World: It's less egregious than usual thanks to its far-flung prequel status, but Future Redeemed mainly takes place in Cent-Omnia, the central region of Aionios, despite the continent being ring-shaped in the present day. In the DLC's ending, Origin crashes into this region of Aionios, explaining why it isn't there by the events of the main game.
• Expy Coexistence: The identities of Alpha and A, and the relationship they share with Alvis from the first game, is highly reminiscent of Xenosaga's Mary Magdalene and her two halves, T-elos and KOS-MOS. Alpha and T-elos are the remnant physical forms of Alvis and Mary that were left behind after their deaths, and as a result have a cold robotic personality which carries out the will of their creators Zanza and Kevin Winicott. Meanwhile, Alvis and Mary's memories and consciousness awakened in a new constructed body as the result of the strong relationship that they developed with Shulk and Shion/the Maiden of Mary, which would make A an Expy of KOS-MOS. The very final shot of Future Redeemed is a falling star that is heavily implied to be KOS-MOS herself coming back to Lost Jerusalem in The Stinger to the ending of Xenosaga Episode III.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Why Moebius and N work with the Liberators to stop Alpha, as they too don't want Alpha destroying Aionios. As bad as Moebius is, Alpha's plan to destroy the world dooms the innocent people forced to fight in the Forever War without hope of freedom.
• Eye Scream: Rex is missing an eye, as previously described in his Founder statue in the main game. As he notes to Glimmer during a talk, he lost it during the fight with Alvis.
• Family of Choice: Matthew remarks that their little group of survivors is like a family. Rex and Shulk concur with him after a little reflection on their relationships with their adoptive daughters.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the final battle against Alpha, now in his One-Winged Angel form, Rex does a Blade Parry with both of his swords against Alpha's Monado, with the resulting strain from them causing him to wish "if only those two were here" (referring to Pneuma and what is implied to be Logos). Immediately afterwards, N and Matthew activate the power of Ouroboros - and in the process of doing so, reveal that Matthew's Gauntlets had been channeling the power of the Pneuma core, which is revealed to be the source of the Ouroboros power, while N's Sword of the End is given a similar amount of focus, with the very heavy implication that Logos is contained within and that Logos is the source of his sword's unique powers, which Z had previously compared to those of a god's.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • As shown in the main game, the Founders will live to create the second City and establish the Six Houses, with Moebius still kicking around until the modern Ouroboros finally defeats them.
  • The game takes place in the Cent-Omnia region, which, as the game establishes in its first Affinity Scene, is in the center of Aionios. Considering that by the time the main game happens, the landmass is ring-shaped, one could expect the DLC to feature Cent-Omnia's destruction or at least foreshadow it. Sure enough, in the closing cutscene, the Origin falls from the sky and destroys the region, before sinking into the ocean below.
• Foreshadowing: Early in the story, Z wonders to himself how the Sword of the End ended up in the hands of Noah (now N), then remarks cryptically that it is evidence of how the wills of god-like beings exist within Origin and have manipulated some events. Sure enough, the final battle with Alpha indicates that in some manner Logos is associated with the sword, with Malos' characteristic energy coming from it. Further, Pneuma's Core Crystal (or something like it) is revealed to be within Matthew's fist weapon.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the memory world of pre-Experiment Earth, there is a shot of a radio with the Vector Industries logo on it. Said radio has the following numbers for its frequencies: 98, 02, 04, 06, 10, 15, 17, and 22. These numbers correspond to the release year of every major Xeno meta-series game.
• Fusion Dance:
  • Consul/Moebius W fuses 2 Ferronises together instead of Interlinking with another Moebius, despite the fact that their Flame Clocks were not connected to any soldiers at all. Of course, given that Y was the inventor of the Clocks in the first place, it's unsurprising that he made those Clocks to function without being connected to both Keves and Agnian soldiers.
  • In order to defeat Alpha, the main party finally Interlink, not into pairs, but all together (including their guests and N), forming a giant Ouroboros form that resembles Noah's.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Matthew and A are introduced in combat with a Vatura Flak. Matthew says that he "can't even seem to Break it!" Sure enough, once the cutscene ends, the Vatura Flak is indeed immune to Break.
• Gender Equals Breed: Matthew and Na'el's family seems to work this way, with Matthew being a Homs, like his great-grandfather, N, and Na'el being a Gormotti, like her great-grandmother, M. Their grandfather, Ghondor, is also a Homs.
• Godzilla Threshold: N activates the power of Ouroboros in order to allow Matthew's group and him to defeat Alpha, thus laying the groundwork for the eventual defeat of the Moebius in 3.
• Grand Finale: Of both Xenoblade Chronicles 3 itself, and per the marketing for 3, of the Klaus Saga for Xenoblade. But likely not the end of the established world the Klaus saga is set in, as the post-credits implies.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Certain aspects of the first adventure the Founders had together will be lost knowledge in the future particularly anything involving Origin and Alpha, much less N's role in helping developing the first Ouroboros Interlink. A implies that a lot of this will be due to Z's increase in power and influence.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Matthew stops Glimmer and Nikol from fighting each other by grabbing Glimmer and throwing her at Nikol.
• Guide Dang It!: During the final boss battle, Alpha can grant himself a buff called "Nullify Most Attacks." Which attacks go through this buff? Any Fusion Art. Does the game tell you? No.
• Hailfire Peaks: The Cent-Omnia Region, the main setting of Future Redeemed, is split into two, a lower half based on early areas from 1 (including the whole of Colony 9 and a chunk of the Gaur Plains), and the Black Mountains, comprised of parts of Valak Mountain and Prison Island. The twist is that the entire region is also covered in Ruins for Ruins' Sake, as the nigh-entirety of Tantal's massive temple structures have been fused into the scenery, along with a few other landmarks such as the remains of Gran Dell and part of the Cliffs of Morytha.
• Handshake Substitute: Matthew and A have the fist bump variety, seen in an early scene to illustrate how Matthew does appreciate A and that for all their snark A cares for Matthew.
• Heroic Sacrifice: After destroying Alpha, the core of Origin, Shulk, Rex, and A choose to become Origin's new battery, sacrificing themselves on Aionios. Both Shulk and Rex make it clear that they will return though, just not until the world is freed from Moebius.
• Hub City: Colony 9 serves as the central hub of operations for the Liberators.
• Interface Spoiler: Not in the game itself but in the Nintendo eShop and Software Options menu. Xenosaga is listed in the intellectual property notices, which spoils The Reveal.
• Insistent Terminology: Shulk and Rex view their Heroic Sacrifice to become part of the core of Origin with A as "taking a breather", which Glimmer and Nikol don't see any difference between. However, Shulk and Rex promise that they will see each other again which hints they mean what they're saying. Given that 3 ends with both the Bionis and Alrest restored to their proper states along with implications from Melia and Nia in the ending that they intend to reunite as well...
• Interquel: The DLC is set over a thousand years before the main game of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and follows the Founders of the second City, but it also follows up on several plot threads established in the first game, its expansion Future Connected, and 2.
• Irony: While in the reflection of Klaus's world, Rex warns that anything could happen in such a strange place. However, to the player, the place is a perfectly normal and mundane place.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Glimmer takes damage after falling from a height, she may say "Nice going, smartass," in a tone that sounds like she's calling out the player for doing something stupid.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Matthew is initially unaware that N is his great-grandfather until A reveals the truth.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Two sidequests involve the player answering multiple choice questions, one for training new recruits at Colony 9, and one where two kids apprentice at a shop by sorting produce. Both play the battle music.
• Mundane Object Amazement: A variation where a entire mundane environment is treated as one of the strangest and most amazing things the party has ever seen. Namely, near the end of the game the party find themselves in Alpha's memory space, which is currently projecting a standard western suburban neighborhood. The party don't know what to make of it, beyond recognizing that the street they are on is a path of some sort. It is only when they spot the metropolis in the distance and the space elevator that Rex and Shulk realize this is another view of Klaus' world.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Matthew being a Bare-Fisted Monk with a Samurai Ponytail references Fei Fong Wong from Xenogears, the first game in the Xeno metaseries. Adding onto this is that Xenogears was initially planned to be Episode V of "Perfect Works", while Future Redeemed is likewise the fifth chronological installment of Xenoblade Chronicles; both occupy the same placement in their respective universe's timelines and both have a martial artist as their main protagonist.
  • Likewise, the official art for Matthew incorporates aspects from Reyn and Xenosaga's Captain Matthews of the Elsa of all people; in addition to all three having official renders making the same◊ type of◊ pose◊, Matthew shares the former's personality and color theming, and the latter's name and fashion sense.
  • Na'el, on the other hand, resembles Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga (specifically from III) in her appearance (a jacket over short-shorts and tights). Like Shion, she was also trained by her grandfather in martial arts.
  • Their grandfather, the original Ghondor Vandham, is not only a Vandham like in the previous Xenoblade games (and 3's House Vandham, which his grandson founded) but his role as a Martial Arts instructor is similar to Fei's own father, Khan.
  • Matthew rests on his cot by lying on his side, the same way Fei does in Xenogears. He also sits with his hands on his knees like Fei does, as seen in the infamous chair cutscenes.
  • One of Shulk's camp animations has him sitting with his legs crossed as he holds a mug, just like Kim Kasim did.
  • Appropriately for having become a Dunban Expy, Shulk's Badass Longcoat and striped sweater outfit combo resembles the one worn by Dunban's direct inspiration Jin Uzuki in Xenosaga I & II and A Missing Year.
  • A's line when targeting a Unique Monster is "We will know its name for certain", referencing "You Will Know Our Names", the title of the iconic Unique Monster theme from the first game. Likewise, Glimmer can quip "Now that's a name we'll remember", referencing the second game's version of the theme.
  • The logo to Future Redeemed features brushstrokes for the first word and flame effects on the second, mimicking the effects of their respective games' logos.
  • Shulk's Liberation Edge animation during Chain Attacks is the same as his victory animation in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Like Torna ~ The Golden Country, the game begins with a Bare-Fisted Monk (Matthew) and a swordwielder (A) getting chased by and fighting monsters within a forested area.
  • When Na'el offers to play piano for the children, you'd expect them to ask for a song they know in-universe. Instead, they get all meta and start asking for music from 1 and 2.
    Gaur Plains!
    The Tomorrow With You!
    Bringer of Chaos Ultimate!
  • At the end of chapter 4 when the party are transported to a flashback of Klaus' world, the neighborhood they are in heavily resembles a Los Angeles suburb like the kind you find in New LA. Even before the Exposition Dump confirms the connection, the player can see that the overall layout of the Rhadamanthus space colony heavily resembles Fifth Jerusalem and Old Miltia.
  • The final boss is essentially a legally-distinct version of Deus's true form, as well as its Expy Omega Metempsychosis, and the theme that plays is a remix of the latter's theme, just like the previous Xenoblade them it is remixing of.
  • The final boss themes for Alpha are restructured reprises of "Zanza the Divine".
  • The poster art for Future Redeemed evokes that of Torna ~ The Golden Country by having its characters split along three pairs. Matthew and A are even staring in opposite directions from each other like Jin and Lora do.
  • The Fog Rift inside Gondorl Cathedral summons a Fog Beast that looks like a dragon, which is a reference to the Dragon King Alcar boss in the first game.
  • The Superboss Gotthard, the Ethereal's name references that of the Tyrants in Xenoblade Chronicles X, particularly Gotthard, the Intimidating.
  • One of A's Unity Combo quotes with Shulk is "It feels like coming home", a reference to the "I've come home" line silently mouthed by Pyra and Mythra to Rex at the end of 2.
  • The name Alvis uses when split between A and himself, Alpha, as well as the names of his aforementioned battle themes, is a callback to the first lines in the opening of Xenogears ("I Am Alpha and Omega, The Beginning and The End, The First and The Last.")
  • At the very end in the post credits sequence, a blue light is seen falling to the now re-merged Earth. This is heavily implied to be a different perspective of the ending of Xenosaga III, where KOS-MOS is shown falling to Earth/Lost Jerusalem.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Glimmer contacts Colony Eta, hoping she would return to Colony Gamma with open arms. Consul W, however, tries to kill her and destroy the Liberators' base, since she no longer has a Flame Clock inside her, despite the fact she led him to the base in the first place.
• Noah's Story Arc: What Alpha's endgame plan ultimately ends up being. Saving only the people of the City using Origin as the ark, and bringing them to a new world after destroying Aionios.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • The original Colony 9 returns as a location and home of the Liberators, although the buildings have been Reclaimed by Nature. Approaching the location will play its theme from the first game and battles near it has "Time to Fight!" as the battle theme as well.
  • The Black Mountains combines Prison Island and some ruins from Tantal. While traveling through it, the group revisits Gondrol Catherdral and a few other places from the original game.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Klaus' world sequence. After spending the entire game in an entirely fantastical setting and having previous installments of the series only showing brief glimpses of the Earth pre-Klaus' experiment, the pre-experiment world is finally shown — and it looks just like any normal human city one would expect to find in the real world. The whiplash from this, the lack of music and enemies, and how normal the place is compared to any other location seen in the Xenoblade Chronicles games so far, is enough to evoke a sense of dread. What adds onto this is Na'el happily telling Matthew about how idyllic and paradisaical this world is, and how she and the children are seen behaving normally without a care in world... all while the radio in background is reporting on the failure of the protection of human rights, people leaving the planet en masse to the stars as part of Project Exodus, and the Saviorites being mentioned again after their brief appearance in 2. The result of all this is a constant feeling of dread and anticipation of something terrible happening, though the most that is shown are the ruins of the world after it went to hell.
• Obi-Wan Moment: Shulk, Rex and A choose to become the new batteries for Origin to keep it functioning, confidently saying that they're just "taking a breather". Given that the intention of Origin is to reset both worlds and merge them successfully, it can be concluded that Shulk and Rex knew that once Origin got back on track, they'd be returned to their original forms.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In one Affinity scene Matthew and A talk about the time the former took on an entire Kevesi colony and won, destroying their Ferronis with only his fists.
• Old Friend, New Gender: While it's unclear if A's gender identity is any different, Alvis had a male physical form in the first game, whereas A's body is listed as female. The first thing Shulk tells to A when they talk one-on-one is that he recognizes A as the same old friend he's always known where it matters, and while he is initially confused by A's different appearance, he is completely understanding once Rex explains that Ontos is nonbinary.
• Once More, with Clarity: The game initially shows Matthew's point of view of N's attack on the City, with Matthew seeing N stabbing Ghondor. A later flashback by N reveals there is more to the story, specifically how Na'el was serving Alpha's will.
• Out of Focus: Aside from the few Moebius you fight early in the game, as well as the fights with Moebius N, Moebius themselves don't really have much time in the spotlight like in the main game. Instead, the true threat of Alpha takes centre stage from Chapter 4 until the end.
• Paradox Person: While still having some ambiguity as to what they mean, A explains the Fogbeasts are this in some way. In the clearest exposition ever given on them, they are stated to be "signs of the strained world the fog birthed," and that they were "never supposed to exist." Notably after Future Connected they are only seen to start appearing again after Alpha takes over Origin, and are nowhere to be seen in the era after A, Shulk and Rex take his place and "prop up" Aionios' existence.
• Production Throwback: During the ending, the fully-fused Ouroboros form that Matthew initiates in the final battle against Alpha strongly resembles an unused Ares design from Xenoblade Chronicles X.
• Rearrange the Song: "Redeem the Future" and "Redeem the Future ~ Finale" are both rearrangements of "Zanza the Divine" from the very first game - fitting, as Zanza drew his power from the Ontos core, which became Alvis at first and then became Alpha in Future Redeemed, and both Zanza and Alpha are the Final Boss of their respective titles.
• Reestablishing Character Moment: In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Kid Hero Rex was a small boy with a big heart, often mistaken for a child even younger than he actually was, but determined to save everyone even from the very start. In Future Redeemed, he's introduced deflecting a giant laser blast that was about to hit a girl and the boy protecting her, complimenting the boy on his guts, and then joining the fight with no further questions. After the fight, when he realizes the girl is his daughter, he gives her some rather harsh fatherly advice... which doesn't go over well, because she doesn't know she's his daughter. He's also fully twice the size he used to be, and it seems to be all muscle.
• Regional Redecoration: At the end of the story, Origin does a Colony Drop and collides with central Aionios, destroying Colony 9 and the areas around it, and creating the crater seen during the climax of 3.
• The Reveal:
  • Carrying over from Future Connected, the true nature of the Fogbeasts is explicitly stated to be that they and the Fog Rifts are manifestations of metaphysical instability, caused by the impending intersection between the world of the Bionis and the world of Alrest.
  • It turns out that following the events of the first game, Alvis had reverted back to the Ontos Trinity Processor, which was found by Shulk. Ontos was then used to serve as the heart of Origin.
  • There is no Consul that could be called "A", and whomever Consul I's notes referred to as the 26th Consul must have gone by a different name, because "A" represents both Ontos and "the Beginning", as the Ontos core served as the battery and foundation for Origin - by proxy, it means that Alpha and A are the only two beings within Aionios who can be known with the moniker of "A" due to it representing "the Beginning".
  • During the final battle, Matthew's Ouroboros Gauntlets/Fists of the End break apart, revealing Pneuma's Core Crystal underneath, showing that the power of Ouroboros originated from the Pneuma core. N's purple aura when using the Sword of the End, as well as Z's comments that his weapon is a unique one that holds power akin to gods, also implies that it is powered by Logos' Core Crystal.
  • Vector Industries existed in Klaus' world and Dmitri Yuriev is the leader of the Saviorites, confirming that the Saviorites were actually the Salvators all along - but importantly, it confirms that some measure of Xenosaga exists in the Xenoblade Chronicles universe, if not the Xenoblade Chronicles series being an outright Stealth Sequel to Xenosaga.
  • Per The Stinger, it is shown that after Origin rebooted the worlds of the Bionis and Alrest were able to merge safely with one another, after it only being implied in The Stinger for 3 by Noah hearing Mio's flute.
• Saved by Canon: Events of the main game make it clear that the six Founders whose families live in the rebuilt City are going to survive, and that Moebius (including N and Z) are going to stick around to be defeated centuries later by Noah & Co. While the same cannot be said for Shulk, Rex, and A in Aionios, they too qualify for this considering that 3 already established that Origin restored everyone in both worlds.
• Sequel Hook: The Stinger shows Aionios safely separating into two worlds again, and then merging back into one as the worlds always desired. It's the final end of the Klaus Saga, and the entire franchise could end there... but a blue shooting star is shown falling to the new world.
• Shout-Out:
  • Matthew's friend of the City being named Dillon and the way Matthew calls out to him upon their reunion, along with Matthew later calling him a "son of a gun" as opposed to a "son of a bitch" brings to mind Dutch and Dillon from Predator.
  • One possible variety of Tirkin enemies that can be encountered is the "Dragoon Tirkin", who make use of jumping attacks when in battle. Of course, this is a shoutout to the Dragoon class from Final Fantasy, first introduced in Final Fantasy II but more well-remembered for its appearance in Final Fantasy IV as the class of Kain Highwind.
  • Na'el pleads for Chyra to stay with her before she dies and slaughters the Kevesi soldiers in a fit of rage, similar to Anakin Skywalker and his situation with the Tusken Raiders murdering his mother, Shimi, in Attack of the Clones.
• Starter Villain: Matthew and A meet Nikol and Glimmer during a battle between Colony 5 and Colony Sigma and force them to stop fighting to focus on the bigger threat of Moebius. Sure enough, Consuls Q and R (different from the Consuls Q and R from the main game's time period) drop in to stop this. Later on, the party encounters Consul W weaponizing Ferronises and must fight him at the climax of Chapter 2. This is the last time the party fights Moebius to focus on the threat of Alpha.
• Stealth Pun: Ghondor claims that once Matthew and Na'el master the power of Ouroboros, they "will find balance. Nay, [they] will become one with [their] very selves." Become one or Interlink?
• The Stinger: After the credits fully finish rolling, Bionis and Alrest are shown drifting apart like in the base game, but from an outer space perspective. This time, however, the yellow energy of the Alrest planet and the blue energy of the Bionis Planet flash and glow, and merge again like in the first shot of the main story, but this time, in both planets place and in a green flash of light, instead of the planet being destroyed, a now fully remerged Earth takes their place, which shows that they were finally able to truly merge, Hand-In-Hand again. Just right after this happens, a blue light of unknown origin is shown falling towards Earth.
• Subverted Catchphrase: The game makes it a minor running gag of having Shulk talk about how this time, he's not really feeling it.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Shulk and Rex have an In-Universe case of Damn You, Muscle Memory! due to being the only characters shown to have survived the creation of Aionios, thus keeping their memories of drawing their swords from their backs, which informs their weapon-drawing animations in this game. Why Melia doesn't draws her Blade this way in Aionios goes unexplained.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The strongest Superboss is a Fogbeast Drague that appears in the Black Mountains, in the same area as Three Sage Summit. It's also called Fogdweller Abaasy, clearly based on the Avalanche Abaasy.
• Tech Points: Affinity Points are used to unlock abilities and improve characters through Affinity Growth, and they are shared by the whole party. They can be obtained through a variety of tasks, such as filling out the Collectopaedia or defeating a specific enemy enough times.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The subtitle in the logo of Future Redeemed has the "F" have the brushstroke from the original Xenoblade's logo, while the "d" has the flames from 2's logo, representing how both games are being brought together.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 4, which brings the party into a Lotus-Eater Machine resembling Klaus' world before it was destroyed, along with a radio broadcast linking Xenoblade to Xenosaga with the mention of two of Saga's main antagonists, one by name and the other by his company's logo.
• Wham Line: A major one during the Coincidental Broadcast in Chapter 5, which recontextualizes the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series with one particular namedrop:
  Radio Announcer: "And now, Dimitri Yuriev, councilperson from the Minos Authority, has issued a statement concerning the matter at hand."
• Wham Shot:
  • A radio broadcast in Klaus' time blithely discusses the state of the world while mentioning various terms from past Xeno games, until the camera fixates on a Vector Industries-branded radio with a not-so-subtle close up of the logo on it in full view, before namedropping major Xenosaga character Dimitri Yuriev.
  • Right before N unleashes the power of Ouroboros, the green light from Matthew's gauntlets attract A and Rex's attention, who are both taken aback by it in disbelief. Moments later, as Matthew's gauntlets disassemble while he's in mid-air, the source of that green light is revealed to be the Pneuma core.
  • The Stinger have two in rapid succession; first it shows both the worlds of the Bionis and Alrest reappearing as separate worlds, before disappearing again...and then reappearing as one merged world, showing that Origin's reset did end up working and bringing a Belated Happy Ending to the characters of 3. The second one comes immediately after, as a blue light of indeterminate origin is showing approaching the new world.
• You Killed My Father: Matthew witnesses Moebius N murder his grandfather during the sacking of the City.

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