Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s new update adds the ability to save party formations

Nintendo has released update Ver. 1.2.0 for Xenoblade Chronicles 3. According to the patch notes on Nintendo’s official site, the new update adds the ability to receive the content of DLC Volume 2 for players who have purchased the Expansion Pass, adjusts the availability of Soyprimo Sauce, and fixes a number of other issues. Also, despite strangely not being mentioned in Nintendo’s patch notes, this update also adds the ability to save and load party formations.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 includes a class system where each of the six protagonists can freely switch between a wide variety of classes. With over 20 classes available in the base game and one more being added in the new batch of DLC content, players can create countless different party combinations.

However, there was originally no way to “save” your party formations. So, for example, if you had a preferred combination for battling regular enemies and another for taking on bosses, it was necessary to go through and manually adjust each character one by one each time you wanted to switch things up. In a game where party combinations and class synergy are so important to the outcome of battle, there were many players who wished that there was a way that you could save different party setups. Those players have now had that wish granted as a party formation backup function has been added to the game as part of the new update.

Accessing the function is as simple as pressing the + button while on the main menu to bring up the new Party Formation menu. This menu allows you to save your current party formation, including not just character classes but also arts, skills, and everything else. There are 15 party formation slots that can be saved to and loaded from instantly, and you can also assign names and numbers to your formations, such as “Default,” “Optimized,” “Balanced,” etc. The functionality is very simple but gives the impression that it assembles all the necessary features.

The addition of the party formation save function is clearly stated in the in-game notice for the Version 1.2.0 update, so it’s unclear why there is no mention of it in Nintendo’s detailed patch notes. Regardless, fans will no doubt be glad to see such a useful feature added to the game. As mentioned earlier in the article, the new update also brings with it the DLC Volume 2 content of the Expansion Pass. The DLC adds an additional hero character and challenge battles, giving players even more to sink their teeth into. Be sure to take advantage of the Party Formation menu as you face these brand-new challenges.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-10-15 10:43 JST)