Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has some engaging side quests well worth taking on.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the third instalment in the series, this time following protagonist Noah, a Keves off-seer who uses his musical talents to help soldiers pass onto the other side. His Agnus counterpart Mio is often likened to his other half as a close relationship between the two begins to form. Like the entry before, the game shares connections to the first and second Xenoblade Chronicles but carves its path with fresh characters and an all-new protagonist.

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And similar to others in the series, the game is long, sitting between 55-100 hours depending on how many side quests you complete. Side missions don’t begin consistently cropping up until chapter three when the story opens up a bit more. They can be separated into three major sections; standard, hero, and collectopaedia quests. For the sake of consistency, this list will mainly focus on standard and hero quests, as these are the easier ones to locate in-game.

The Kids' Aspiration begins with your party stumbling across characters, Neon, Shiner, San, and Azalea. The four quickly disperse once you try speaking to them. As it turns out, they didn't flee from fear of getting in trouble, but so they could muster a couple of extra minutes to craft something to help Noah in battle.

Once completing the quest, you will obtain this gift, a shackle ring you can equip from the accessory screen. The moments like this help the world feel a little more alive, reminding us to take a moment and exist.

While walking around Colony 4, you can overhear the conversation of a new off-seer named Url, who’s gone missing. His allies are worried about him because he refuses to do off-seeing while others are present. Your team then sets off to uncover why this is. Heading through the Millick Meadows, you’ll eventually find your way to Url, who is struggling with feelings about his role. Url wants to be able to help but is embarrassed because he can’t send off soldiers' souls properly.

Noah talks him through this and you can convince Url to tap into a different emotion. If this is your choice, Url will return to Carrie and profess how he needs to work through his feelings before returning to his job. The quest is short, sweet, and something Noah can personally relate to.

Tallow comes up with an idea to ease Fiona’s job by creating a point card that people contribute to by helping out around Colony Mu. Every time someone completes a task, they earn a sticker which is then added to their point card, and whoever gets the most points becomes the new Lieutenant. Fiona, being the type of person to help out whenever possible, decides to contribute towards this card, even though the whole idea was to help her out with the overstuffed workload she often has.

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As it happens, everyone earns the same amount of points. This is because Tallow and his friends deem them all to have done such a fantastic job, meaning everyone who participated is now the Lieutenant. It seems the moral of the story was everyone needs to pitch in and help out, so there’s no need for a singular Lieutenant.

Before playing Tactical Eradication, you must complete the side quest Charity and Hypocrisy, which you also unlock during Chapter 3. The mission begins with Maxie asking you to eliminate three monsters. You’ll learn more about these bosses by speaking to his scouts, Jeremy, Fla’ran, and Yorde, who each give you requests to take down these monsters.

You’ll fight a Debria Volff, Drone Arachno, Midona Arachno, and a Towaris Taos. Once completed, your party returns to Maxie, finalizing the quest by passing on the monster pieces you collected to Solon. It’s essentially optional bosses cut into three parts, but by the end, you’ll learn a little about Maxie’s tendency to deal with things by himself, meaning he trusted you enough to ask for assistance.

An Ashera-centric story, Three Ravens at War, starts with gathering information about Tenacious Clad, Spearhead Zoren, and Fellplume Easel. The mission will take you to a few specific places before you get to the bulk of the gameplay, where it ends with you taking on the Three Ravens in a boss fight.

This moment begins with Zoren, Easel, and Clad asserting their want to take on Ashera in a fight. Ashera, not the type to back down from a good battle, asks the rest of the party to fight alongside her. This fight is long, seeing you take on all three characters simultaneously. The quest ends with your party coming out on top with Ashera ending the fight by expressing how she never once saw the Ravens as lesser than herself and how she’s open to a potential future rematch.

Once reaching level 10 class rank for Guardian Commander and completing a couple of quests, you can push past Zeon’s class rank limit, which will raise it to level 20. This works the same for all Ascension quests, where you must complete a character-specific sub-quest before breaking the rank limit. For Zeon, this is titled Reasons to Evolve and will see you help the hero with creating crop fields.

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It’s a breakaway from most other optional plots, which are all about defeating a monster or rescuing someone, and helps strengthen the bond between Zeon and the rest of the party. You also get the bonus of making Zeon more powerful after finishing the quest with decent EXP and gold to boot.

Just like Zeon’s Ascension, Eunie’s Ascension, better known as Side Story: Eunie, can only begin after completing some previous quests. Once doing so, you’ll start the side story by meeting up with Bolearis to find out what happened to Colony 5, who can’t currently be contacted. After tracking them down and rescuing them, you’ll continue to Loska’s Cavern to learn the Colony system was created to motivate people enough to reach gold rank where they can be harvested for their life force. A twisted game of using their soldiers to the bitter end.

Eunie and allies will then take on those spurring this revelation, Consul X and Moebius L, afterward discussing the events that just happened and what this means for Eunie personally. Completing the side story will uncap the Medic Gunner rank from level 10 to level 20.​​​​​​​

The final move before uncapping Ashera’s class rank (Lone Exile) is to play through the quest A Deep-Seated Scar. This plot follows the party heading to Colony 11 to help with an oncoming attack. After fighting through waves of enemies, you’ll reach the pinnacle of the quest by taking on Moebius R, aka Madam Consul. After this battle, Eunie and Ashera will share a heartfelt talk, rather than the usual bickering they seem to share.

Ashera typically keeps to herself, showing an outward look of being strong enough to deal with everything alone; up until this moment, that is where Eunie breaks through her defenses.

Being one of the more prominent characters, Melia would always secure a place on this list. Luckily, she takes the top spot. However, before the opportunity to complete Melia’s final quest for Ascension (From Atop Her Throne), you must first complete a handful of missions that require Melia and allies to aid others.

These include missions, Colony 9’s Backup, Friction with Agnus, and The City Pep Talk. While working through these, you’ll notice the running theme of people you’re helping acting surprised that Melia is on the ground with them doing what she can to make things better. Like all other Ascension quests, you will raise the class rank limit, this time for Royal Summoner, upon completion.​​​​​​​

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Nico is a List Writer for TheGamer. He has spent most of his life immersed in the worlds of gaming and film, with an aspiration to one day create their own movie. And, of course, trying to spread the word about the beauty of The Witcher Universe.