The Story of Xenoblade Chronicle 3 Artwork Unravelled

Monolith Soft’s Xenoblade Chronicle 3 is an RPG where players travel a world of oversized monsters. Such open-world games often come with stunning visuals and Xenoblade is no exception. While the game is loved for its graphics, the devs didn’t ignore how important the box and cover art is. For this, they hired a new employee and within his short time in the company, he was asked to work on the cover art.

Recently the employee sat down with Nintendo to speak about the artwork. Osamu Nagai the employee in question told Nintendo about his experience in getting the responsibility of representing such a beloved franchise.

Xenoblade Chronicle 3 artist speaks about his experience

Osamu Nagai along with a team of other artists from Monolith Soft worked on the cover art of the game. In the interview, he said, “The main job of the group I belong to is the design of packages and logos that are often in the eyes of our customers.”

Nagai joined Nintendo in 2021. He was quickly assigned to a significant project where he played a key role in shaping the game’s visual representation. Expressing his desire, he aimed to design something that wouldn’t disappoint customers, given the series’ established reputation and support.

The cover art drew inspiration from the developers’ concept art. It also involved discussions with them to understand their vision for the game. This collaborative effort resulted in the creation of a stunning image featuring all the characters gazing at a colossal figure of a beast alongside a sword.

The logo was made by adding the shining effects of particles towards the top of the letters. This resembles the particles of light that float around when players play the flute in the game. Because the flute plays a huge role in the game, the artists worked to incorporate it into the logo. He added, “When designing the logo, we focused on the “drops of light” that appear when people in this world mourn. It is treated as an impressive effect in the game. By using this effect as a logo design, we expressed the “transience of life,” which is a part of the core of the story of this work.”

What did the artists keep in mind while making the cover art?

The design aimed to capture the essence of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 as the culmination of the series trilogy while expressing the uniqueness and charm of the latest installment. And for that, he spoke about the importance of playing past entries in the Xenoblade series to understand the reputation, story, character charm, and overall appeal of the game. He said, “In terms of visual design, we decided to combine the huge objects “Machine God Sword” and “Giant Divine Beast”, which were also depicted on the packaging of the past two games.”

Not only did the game development team receive the shared design direction, but it was also communicated to the sales and promotion departments. We considered feedback from various stakeholders to ensure that the conveyed visual points aligned with their goals.

Read More – Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Patchnotes: Here’s What Nintendo Has Changed With Update 2.1.1

Nagai’s role extended beyond package design to include media such as booklets, merchandise, and event materials. He expressed happiness in seeing customers pick up the package in stores. “It’s a lot of fun to create each piece while imagining how to convey it to the customer,” he stated. “I was very happy when I saw customers actually picking up the packaging at the store, and I would like to continue focusing on creating products that convey the appeal of our products to customers.”

Looking at the interview, we can see how dedicated the team is to making games. What do you think about the artwork?

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