Tales of Berseria: The Prequel That Outshone Its Sequel
Berseria is Zestiria’s distant past told as a revenge story, the darker half of the pair, and the one players kept.
Tales of Berseria launched in Japan on August 18, 2016 for PS3 and PS4, the PS3 version stayed home; North America received the game on January 24, 2017 for PS4 and PC. Velvet Crowe, a village girl whose family is destroyed by the brother-in-law she trusted, escapes prison with a daemon’s arm and one intention. It is the first mothership title carried by a lone female protagonist, and the series’ coldest opening hours.
THE SAME WORLD, EARLIER
Zestiria’s foundationA thousand years before the Shepherd
Berseria’s world is Zestiria’s Glenwood in an earlier age: the Abbey Velvet fights is the institution whose ruins and legends Zestiria’s party walks through. Played in either order, each game annotates the other, the two were designed as one long history.
The daemonblight’s origin
Where Zestiria treats malevolence and daemons as weather, Berseria shows the machinery being built: the exorcists, the therion, the first Shepherd’s myth being manufactured in real time. Its explanations retroactively deepen the earlier game’s silences.
Inside the anime
The connection was made literal on screen: Tales of Zestiria the X, ufotable’s 2016–17 series, pauses its Zestiria adaptation for two episodes retelling Berseria’s opening, one franchise narrating both halves of its history in a single broadcast.
THE GAME ITSELF
Reception and returnVelvet’s engine
Velvet’s therion arm is the battle system’s centre: devouring enemies’ souls to extend combos, a protagonist mechanically built around consumption and payback. The cast around her, a daemon swordsman, a witch, a pirate crew, plays as a darker mirror of the usual Tales party.
The verdict of time
Zestiria, the anniversary flagship, divided its audience; Berseria, arriving fourteen months later without the anniversary burden, consolidated it. In the years since, it is Berseria that anchors the pair in polls, replays and recommendations.
Remastered, February 2026
Tales of Berseria Remastered (February 2026) was the Remastered Project’s third release, bringing the game to the current console generation complete, the prequel’s shelf now sits beside its sequel’s on modern hardware.