Two weeks ago, I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3, with mixed feelings.

While I still enjoyed it, it ended up being my least favorite in the series and didn’t give me that same sense of joy that past Xenoblade games did.

But I was committed to following up with the story DLC, so I took a short break to play Ciel’s route of Tsukihime, realized I missed Arcueid too much (we’ll get to this someday in a Tsukihime review), and returned to Xenoblade instead to start up Future Redeemed!

You might recall that I greatly enjoyed Torna, Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s DLC, so I had high hopes for this one.

Future Redeemed is a prequel to the main Xenoblade Chronicles 3 story and follows a new character named Matthew as he searches for his missing sister and tries to find survivors from the destroyed City. It’s hard to say much about the story without spoilers, but it’s filled with nostalgia for Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2. In a way, it has the sort of callbacks and connections many people initially expected from 3.

Gameplay-wise, it’s quite similar to the main game, but it has some differences. You can’t change classes here, but instead you can customize which characters are paired together for combo attacks and equip accessories that change your Chain Attack effects. Every character also has a skill tree, with skills and passive upgrades you unlock by spending Affinity Points.

And here’s where it really hooked me. Remember how I criticized Torna for forcing you to do side quests to progress? Well, Future Redeemed found a much better way to compel me to do everything – gameplay rewards.

The proper Collectopaedia is back, which was already a treat for me (that alone made me happier with it over the main game; I really missed the Collectopaedia), and for every entry you complete, you get Affinity Points. There’s also a bestiary that tracks the monsters you’ve fought. Once you’ve fought enough of each type? You get Affinity Points! Find all the containers in an area? Affinity Points! Explore enough to discover all the landmarks? Affinity Points! Do a side quest for an NPC that completes their Community entry? You guessed it, more Affinity Points!

Future Redeemed basically rewards you for everything with Affinity Points, which you then can use to make your characters stronger, and this compelled me to do almost everything.

As you progress, you also gain a handful of field actions that let you access new areas, which makes exploration feel even more fun. While I dragged my feet on the main game, here I tore through the DLC because I just wanted to keep exploring more places and checking off more discoveries and earning more Affinity Points. Even ether cylinders became a valuable resource I wanted to seek out.

Although the story is short compared to a full game, it has some great scenes. I don’t have an entirely clear grasp on some aspects of the story even now, but that just ties back to my general feelings on Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s story and world. The important thing is that it didn’t annoy me the way 3’s story did.

Anyway, while it’s still not my favorite Xenoblade world and the DLC can’t escape that since it’s part of the same history, I enjoyed the new cast of characters and their interactions, and the additional context it added to the world and backstory (even if it makes some parts more confusing).

It also had some intriguing references at one point that has left me playing “Cute easter egg or massive lore drop??” ever since.

All in all, I had a lot of fun playing Future Redeemed. It’s a good DLC, and it brought back that Xenoblade joy. While it isn’t enough to change Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in my ranking, it made me happier about the game overall and excited for what the next Xenoblade game will bring.