The other way to look at it is by looking at Tetsuya Takahashi's full scope of games. Of the seven Xeno games, only Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 don't have some kind of Gear/Skell type things that the player can control - even if they exist in the world as Mechons and Aions. So, those two are the odd ones out. You could even go back to Final Fantasy 6 with the Magitek Armour, which is where the concept originated for Takahashi (I think he's credited as something like a map editor, but he worked as a writer, scene director, artist, and animator).

Xenoblade Chronicles actually makes sense in that regard because it was originally not intended to be a Xeno game, so that stuff was never designed. The dev team only later on wanted him to change the name to make it a "Xeno" game because they felt the game was a greater accomplishment than just the prototype he originally intended it to be. Of course, there's still the Mechons and Aions in XC1 and 2, just not a mechanism to control them as a player.

There are definitely Gears/AEGS/Skells in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, both nations warring with each other use them - Keves (which seems like Kislev from Xenogears) uses more industrial style Gears, while Agnus (which sounds like Ignas from Xenogears, this is the continent which contains the nation of Aveh and Nisan) is more Ether style Gears - which look a lot like Ethos Gears - the Ethos are the religious organization that controls Aveh - in Xenogears, the main war is between Aveh and Kislev. Below are a screenshot of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and a Gear from Aveh/Ethos used by the leader Shakhan.

While Kislev and Keves sound near identical, so far, Agnus is probably going to be different from Aveh. Aveh, as we got it, is an update of the Kingdom of Figaro in Final Fantasy 6. Figaro and its characters (including Edgar and Sabin) were largely designed by Soraya Saga and Tetusya Takahashi - you can call them the two original Monolithsoft figures since they both conceived of Xenogears, maybe throw in Yasonori Mitsuda and Kunihiko Tanaka, who Tetsuya Takahashi had worked with all the way back in his days at Nihon Falcom and had a lot to do with the artistic conception. Edgar and Sabin also have spiritual versions in Xenogears called Rene and Roni, two brothers who lived a few hundred years ago, and are in the same dynasty (Fatima) as Bart of Aveh and Marguerite of Nisan.

I think they didn't use Gears in Xenoblade Chronicles for two reasons: A. Tetsuya Takahashi originally saw the game as an advanced prototype (like T-1000), and B. adding those mechanics in were a bit beyond the scope, that's something that came in with Xenoblade Chronicles X, a world more than 5 times larger than Xenoblade Chronicles. But the story the Monado is very similar to that of Fei's Gear Weltall - they are both sacred weapons meant to slay a god. Shulk was just a remake Fei, and Fiora was a cross between Alice and Elly. The story of Xenoblade Chronicles wasn't as dark as Xenogears. Instead of Fei "accidentally" killing Alice when he took control of Weltall, they had Metalface kill Fiora. But the idea of the main character taking hold of the mysterious ancient god-killing weapon to defend his home town is all there.

Anyway, I'm curious to see how much of Xenogears Takahashi brings into Xenoblade Chronicles 3. As of May 2020, according to Monolith Soft President Sugiura, the dream is still to one day create Xenogears 2. They view all the Xeno games as belonging to the same Metaverse, and that Xenoblade Chronicles series is considered a prototype. https://nintendowire.com/news/2020/05/29/monolith-soft-was-created-to-specifically-to-try-and-develop-xenogears-2/

So, the question is Xenoblade Chronicles 3 going to be a reimagining of the Xenogears concept, or is this the last prototype before we get the real deal?

Another thing to consider. The main character that looks like a dandy version of Fei is called Noah. Project Noah was the original name of Xenogears.

The Ark in Xenogears was a 100 km long space ship that crash landed on the planet about 10,000 years earlier. Fei is the incarnation of the survivor who connected with the wave existence (worshipped as God) and has been reborn through history - he's basically the Messiah.

Aionios.

Thanks

IMO, they should have just cut those last bits at the end and just revealed the lifehold to contain the Zohar Conduit. I feel like keeping these questions open takes too much focus off the story that is like a 2 minute cutscene from completion. Because, for those of us familiar with Takahashi's work, we know the reason is the Zohar. It's just a matter of how it's incorporated into the game, it was likely something that existed on Mira from ancient times. But yeah, I want Xenoblade Chronicles X2 as well. If not that, a remake that closes the story - because it's SO easy to do.

In many way's it reminds me of Xenosaga where we got a story that was meant to be told over a longer number of games but was truncated into a trilogy, with Xenoblade chronicles X even though the story was most likely meant to be told in one game, it to me ended up like most of Takashi's work having a scale that is hard to fit into one game or in Xenosagas case a trilogy.

The idea of the two worlds intersecting has huge potential, and knowing Takahashi the story will be an enthralling epic with cool twists and turns aplenty.

Interested to see what the combat system will be like; I hope it's an improvement over 2, (which wasn't bad per se, just my least favourite system in the series) but Torna was already a step in the right direction in this regard so hopefully it will be. I also hope that, like Torna, easy mode will be available from day 1, so I won't have to deal with the frustrating difficulty spikes that soured 2 a bit for me at times.

Also love that British VA continues to be a hallmark of the series, it wouldn't feel the same without it.

If it can forego the progress gating of X and 2, and the latter's cringey moments, this may well be a contender for the best game in the series, and that's high praise as I consider Xenoblade 1 as one of the top 10 games of it's decade.

Compared to Rex who looks like he's barely shed all his baby teeth, it's enough of a step up. It was definitely one of the first things I was grateful for; that the protagonist seemed a step older/maturer than the previous two, even though Shulk is moreso just short, this new protagonist still feels that bit more mature and sophisticated on the surface.

Also I don't know what the flutes are meant to symbolise just yet, but they're clearly a big theme of the game, shown in multiple scenes and also emphasised with the soundtrack. I also noticed the two main character swapped their flutes in one of the middle scenes.

Another Xenogears connection - I believe this was pointed out, but Keves and Agnus are the Greek and Latin words for "Lamb"
In Xenogears, "Lambs" were what the Solarians referred to people living on the surface as. It's kind of the same way that the Kingdom of Zeal referred to the people living on the surface as earthbounders, but with more of a biblical connotation.

What this means is there might be a higher power, or two higher powers manipulating the wars on the surface, similar to how Solaris did it to keep the lambs weak.

Don't get me wrong, I think this game is easily going to be the best of the trilogy. It has a lot of Xenogears parallels, that always gets me excited. But...

When your main character looks closer to Taylor Swift than Taylor Hanson

The fact that Xenoblade Chronicles X was so big in the period of time it was in dev is remarkable. But, I still think Xenogears in 2 years is impressive... of course, I heard the dev team probably did about 5 years worth of shifts in that time. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with 50 people is also NUTS! That game isn't the same scope of XCX, but it's still a gigantic game.