A few days ago, Nintendo revealed the file sizes for three of what were set to be its upcoming titles:Nintendo Switch Sports(now available),Splatoon 3, andXenoblade Chronicles 3. Fans were surprised to find that thelatest addition to theXenobladeseries will require 15 GB to downloadupon release.
If this holds true, it meansXenoblade Chronicles 3will be the largest Switch exclusive yet.Pokemon SwordandShieldwas 10.3 GB, meanwhileThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildhad a 13.4 GB base game. Those with the regular Nintendo Switch or Switch Lite consoles will find the game eating up about 47 percent of their built-in storage, while OLED owners will only lose about 23 percent of their storage space. But the size of the upcomingXenoblade Chroniclessequel shouldn’t be a surprise.
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The Case for Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s File Size
The main reason whyXenoblade Chronicles 3’s file size makes sense is because gamers have seen this happen before. Larger sequels aren’t an unusual phenomenon; for example, the first game in CD Projekt Red’sThe Witcherseries was 15 GB, followed byThe Witcher 2: Assassins of Kingsat 25 GB, andThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntat 35 GB. Even so, the game with the largest size available on the Nintendo eShop isNBA 2K21at nearly 40 GB, following up onNBA 2K20eating up almost 33 GB of space.
To compare, the file size forXenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Editionis 13.7 GB, meanwhileXenoblade Chronicles 2takes up 13.2 GB of space on Switch. Although it may look like the games drop in size as the series goes along, it should be noted that theoriginalXenoblade Chronicleson Wii Uwas about 6.5 GB - making the sequel, more than twice the size of its predecessor. For this reason, it’s only logical that the third game to the series is bigger than the games prior.
The 15 GB file size forXenoblade Chronicles 3should be a surprise for the opposite reason, as it’s actually much smaller than a sequel is expected to be in many cases. Monolith Soft managed to create a sequel that’s only a couple of gigabytes larger than the second game when the latter was, again, a little over twice as big as the original Wii U game. As of this writing, preciselywhat improvementsXenoblade Chronicles 3has over its predecessor is unknown.
Sequels are more often bigger than any previous game in their series because their stories get more complex, their worlds become larger, and the game’s graphics naturally become more detailed and sophisticated as the years go by. Alongside those progressions, studios tend to add new characters to their games' sequels, like withXenoblade Chronicles 3’s dual-protagonists Noah and Mio. In the case of this nextXenobladegame, it is said to combine elements from both its predecessors, which were largely disconnected.
All these details are reflected with the ever-increasing sizes of modern games, and why players will find that extra storage becomes more critical regardless of their platform. With that said, fans looking forward to the next installment ofXenoblade Chroniclesshould verify they have enough space beforethe game’s surprise earlier release date. Thankfully, plenty of micro SD cards with massive storage sizes exist on the market to supplement the small internal storage of the Switch.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3releases July 23, 2025 for Nintendo Switch.
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