As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Like with the rest of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, Future Redeemed doesn't shy away in being incredibly disturbing when the times calls for it.
- Alpha in general is this. While retaining the appearance and powers of Alvis from Xenoblade Chronicles, he is no longer a friendly face to Shulk and co., and has now become a cold and uncaring machine operating without any sort of conscience or morals; thankfully A is the embodiment of said morals and refers to themselves as Alpha's "conscience", but it can still be creepy to longtime fans of the series to see what was essentially its Big Good become the franchise's most dangerous villain yet. Like with his brother Malos and Amalthus in 2, Alpha believes that the world is a wretched place beyond saving and is focused on destroying it entirely while whisking away the people of the City to another world, but unlike those two, Alpha doesn't even get any Pet the Dog moments or a tragic backstory to make him sympathetic to the audience - he is wholly a machine without any ounce of care.
- Unlike Z and the Moebius from 3, Alpha doesn't show any proclivity for sadism or overindulgence, and he barely ever emotes the way they do; Alpha is a complete No-Nonsense Nemesis that can and will destroy Aionios once their main aims of taking away the people of the City has been accomplished, and Alpha is only defeated because Z, N, and the Founders recognize that he is a greater threat to Aionios than anyone else.
- Alpha's biggest feat in the game is that (while he was greatly weakened and injured in the process) he was able to defeat the combined power of Shulk, Rex, and Z, resulting in the former two being gravely wounded and the latter being imprisoned inside Origin after Alpha took control of it. Repeat; Alpha was able to defeat the Big Bad of 3 that was said to be the embodiment of the two worlds' collective fears and anxieties, as well as the two champions of both worlds that conquered insurmountable threats in their youth. That alone cements Alpha as being near the top of the totem pole in regards to the strongest beings within Aionios - and based on the timeline of events.
- Based on the timeline of events, it's highly implied in Future Redeemed, if not outright confirmed, that the entire reason Z resurrected N wasn't just because he wanted amusement, but because Z was trapped inside Origin by Alpha and needed an enforcer to follow his will outside of it and fight Alpha - and so by resurrecting N and pushing him over the Despair Event Horizon, he was able to create a right-hand man whose raw despair and sorrow was so powerful that he would be able to match Alpha in power.
- Alpha's One-Winged Angel form is something to behold. Unlike Pyra and Mythra's fusion being easy on the eyes or Malos utilizing Artifice Aion for his final fight, Alpha transforms into a metallic red-and-white being with a static face that looks like it was sculpted from marble, all of which makes him heavily resembles Deus' final form. His voice is also deepened heavily, making sound much more alien than he did in what was previously Alvis' body. Said voice is also almost completely unintelligible, making it even more disturbing.
- Shulk and Rex reuniting with their respective children Nikol and Glimmer is a heartwarming moment, but there's also lots of Realism-Induced Horror injected into it; Shulk and Rex had no idea if their children were pulled out of Origin by the Moebius and thrown into the cycle, and if they were, then they have no way of knowing unless if they find them on the battlefield - which would confirm to them that their children have been forced into an endless cycle of war, pain, and strife, which would absolutely be a giant source of worry for them. No wonder why Rex reacted so harshly when he first reunited with Glimmer; most of it was Anger Born of Worry, and none of it was Glimmer's own fault.
- The destruction of the first City is this; the first seen of it in the DLC is from Matthew's perspective, where he sees his grandfather Ghondor being stabbed by Moebius N - and then later on, he finds out that N is Ghondor's own father, thus making N is great-grandfather. However, the full context makes it event more nightmarish:
- From Ghondor's perspective, he was walking home to the City one day when he saw it under attack, with a large pillar of light emitting from its center. When he arrived back, he now sees his granddaughter and the children of the City all standing in that pillar of light, telling Ghondor that only he and Matthew are needed before they can leave - all while Ghondor's home he knew for all his life was being destroyed around him. And then things only get worse once Consul N shows up.
- The last Ghondor saw of his father, he had disappeared into motes of light before his very eyes when Ghondor was a mere child. Now, he finally reunites with his father after decades - only to discover that N had become Moebius, despite having fought them for all of his life. On one side he has his granddaughter Na'el acting in a completely strange and alien way, while on the other he's witnessing his own father after he turned to evil and abandoned his ideals. And then his father begins telling him about Alpha and their plans to transport everyone from the City to another world while Aionios is destroyed - but Ghondor still doesn't understand who or what Alpha even is.
- Ghondor then has to watch as Alpha in his granddaughter's body and his father who had fallen to evil begin fighting, and both are equally matched, until N manages to get the better of Alpha and is prepared to finish them once and for all - and then Na'el (or rather, Alpha using Na'el's voice), in feigned fear, asks for him to help her. Whether its a Wounded Gazelle Gambit or not is left ambiguous, but Ghondor's grandfatherly instincts kick in, as he jumps in-between N and Na'el - and N ends up stabbing his own son instead by accident, shocking N to his very core. Ghondor's last moments are then spent looking into his father's eyes, asking him if his mother Mio knew of what N was doing - with N telling him that the burden was his to bear alone. Ghondor pleads with N to not go down this path, telling him that she wouldn't want him to do so, and N can only reply by saying his own son's name softly, knowing that what he chose was the wrong path. And then Matthew arrives calling out for Ghondor, thus bringing it back to the perspective shown from Matthew's point of view.
- The entire scene on Klaus' world - or rather, a recreation of it. After spending the entire series within fantastical locations or the ruins of the previous human civilization on Earth, the audience finally gets to see what Klaus' world was really like...and it looks like a normal, contemporary human city. Seeing the characters of Future Redeemed walking around a quiet suburb with the Rhadamanthus space elevator in the background is a jarring sight to see. For Rex specifically, he takes one look at the space elevator and immediately knows that this is the World Tree from Alrest, thus cluing him and Shulk in to the fact that they are now in Klaus' world.
- The eerie silence of the scene is broken by Matthew hearing a piano playing - and specifically a melody he heard Na'el playing from the City, and rushes towards it. He finds Na'el playing on the piano, and after a game of seeing her falling into cynicism in flashbacks or being used as a vessel by Alpha, she happily greets Matthew as if nothing as happened, saying that everyone had been waiting for him, with the children of the City immediately emerging seemingly from nowhere, with them and Na'el acting as if nothing's wrong. Na'el then tells Matthew of how wonderful this new world is, saying that they could all live together without any need for the "old life", the latter of which she says in a hardened tone, thus disrupting her now-happy exterior for a few seconds.
- Na'el happily telling Matthew about how good the new world is along with the children playing and eating snacks is already strange, but listening closely to the radio in the background tells a whole new story - the newscaster on the radio is talking about humans leaving Earth to the stars via Project Exodus and the Earthlife Colonization Project, and that bit of news is immediately followed up on by the failure of a Saviorite human rights protection bill in being passed by politicians. While Na'el is excitedly going on about how great the world is, the radio confirms a different story altogether - human rights protections are failing and people are fleeing the Earth, thus showing that Na'el really isn't listening to what has been happening on Klaus' world. A appears and tells Na'el that she must've thought about what all this leads up to and how it ends, which a flock of birds immediately flying away in the distance, as if something terrible was approaching. The surroundings then change to a darkened sky and the ruins of the human city in the distance, showing that despite Na'el's hopes, Klaus' world was prone to the same strife and human suffering as Aionios was. Further, the "children" that Na'el was so enchanted by vanish, much to her shock and confusion, suggesting they were illusions all along by Alpha to keep Na'el compliant.
- Easily the most eerie part of the scene is that what led to the end of Klaus' world - the human rights failures, the fleeing of people from Earth, etc. - is never shown onscreen. The characters and the audience only hear about what is happening on the radio and from A, but none of the monumental suffering and despair of humans in the waning days of Klaus' world is even shown onscreen, leaving the rest to everyone else's imagination.
- But one thing from the radio can paint a clearer picture of what exactly is going on in Klaus' world - the leader of the Saviorites is none other that Dmitri Yuriev. While this was a Dub Induced Plothole, listening to the Japanese versions of both the opening cutscene of 2's final chapter and the Klaus' world cutscenes from Future Redeemed confirm that the Saviorites are supposed to the Salvators from Xenosaga, who were a race of Designer Babies created for the purpose of hyperspace travel, meaning that this protection bill was likely one to prevent human experimentation. And the fact that the Saviorites are the Salvators means that this isn't a one-off mention of Yuriev intended as a Mythology Gag, but rather an indication that this is the same Yuriev as seen in Xenosaga - in other words, Xenosaga is very heavily implied, if not outright confirmed to be canon to Xenoblade Chronicles, which is also supported by The Stinger for Future Redeemed showing a blue light arriving at the merged worlds of Bionis and Alrest, heavily implying that it is not only supposed to be KOS-MOS, but that the two worlds of Xenoblade Chronicles were Lost Jerusalem all along. And for that matter, Xenosaga specifically is listed in the copyright notices for Future Redeemed, all of which further supports the notion that Xenosaga and its own various horror are all canon to Xenoblade Chronicles.
- The Saviorite attack on the First Low Orbit Station, as depicted in 2, is now given additional context with the knowledge that they are supposed to be the Salvators and are being lead by Yuriev. If their attack on the station is an attempt at claiming the Conduit/Zohar for themselves, then all of a sudden Klaus' experiment with the Conduit comes off as less of the delusions of a man desiring to be a God, and more a last resort to do anything that can stop the Salvators and Yuriev specifically from getting their hands on such a giant source of power. In other worlds, Yuriev is an Unwitting Instigator of Doom for the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series.
- One key difference of Aionios in Future Redeemed is that the Mor Ardain titan can be seen between the the titan Uraya and the Mechonis Sword. Given how Mor Ardain is nowhere to be seen in 3 save for its arm, it's safe to say that it ended up being destroyed by Annihilation Events. And considering that Keves Castle is now located in 3 in that exact same location, it can also be deduced that Fort O'Virbus was built out of the ruins of Alba Cavanich.
- An Affinity Scene on Prison Island has the party looking around at its ruins and getting spooked out by it, with Matthew wondering out loud what Prison Island was even meant to contain. Shulk lets out a small yet unnoticed gasp, knowing exactly who was imprisoned in Prison Island and its true purpose.
- Similar to Levialord Empireo in the base game except not any better with its presence under a bridge in The Ragmos Desolation (Raguel Lake). We encounter the Superboss Thunderfish Duna-Roa. Here, you encounter it in a thunderstorm. On top of that there is some serious fridge horror with the fact it can put you to sleep while in the open water. Thank god for no super drowning skills in this game.
