How To Do Challenge Battles
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 recently received its second wave of DLC, adding new hero Ino and the first of two planned sets of challenge battles. These increasingly difficult challenges allow players to test their party and their skills while offering valuable rewards for success.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has only been out for a few months, but players can already enjoy several new pieces of content as part of the Expansion Pass, including a range of costumes, a new hero, and the challenge battles that are the focus of this article.
Access to the DLC
Before players can access Expansion Pass content, it must first be activated via the game’s pause menu. Go to the Expansion Pass menu, select Wave 2 and claim the Challenge Battles quest to add it to the quest list. With this done, players must head to the Fornis region.
The portal to the Land of Challenge has appeared near the Llyn Nyddwr camp, located on the cliffs west of Colony 30. As you approach the portal, the party will be drawn into the Land of Challenge, where they will face the Nopon Archsages.
This is how challenge battles work
In Challenge Land, speaking to Nopon’s Archsage allows players to browse the list of available challenges. Certain challenges may only appear after a certain point in the main story to prevent spoilers regarding specific characters and bosses.
Players are ranked based on the time it takes them to complete the challenge, with a grade of A or better required to earn the item reward for a challenge. Challenges also each have their own set of rules, which can be seen in the bottom-right menu. If a challenge has a level cap, party members above that level will be reduced to that level for the duration of the challenge.
Players can also see the number of waves in a challenge in the rules section, which can be useful when preparing. The Archsage’s minions can be found on the left side of the Land of Challenge, each offering a service in exchange for Noponstones.
The Archsage’s Assistant, Red, exchanges 2,000 Red Nopon Stones for class unlock experience, allowing characters to quickly unlock classes they don’t already have access to. Meanwhile, the “Erzweiser Page, Rot” offers a variety of prizes ranging from powerful accessories to silver and gold nopon coins.
Players looking to collect a lot of Noponstones should pay attention to the bonuses that sometimes activate after completing a challenge. These appear on a random challenge that has already been completed, and multiply the Noponstone rewards from that challenge by 3. Only five bonuses can be active at a time, and they will remain until that challenge is completed.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is available for Nintendo Switch.