What is Tales of Zestiria?

Tales of Zestiria, released in Japan on January 22, 2015 for PlayStation 3, was announced worldwide as the series' 20th anniversary commemorative title, and its credits read like a roll call. Character design was shared by all four house artists, Fujishima, Inomata, Okumura and Iwamoto. ufotable animated its openings and cutscenes. Motoi Sakuraba composed, sharing duties with Go Shiina. The story is deliberately classical: Sorey, a young man raised by spirits no one else can see, takes up the mantle of the Shepherd to fight the malevolence turning people into hellions.

Its Western release marked the series' modernization. North America received it on October 20, 2015, not only on PlayStation 3 but on PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam, the first time a mothership title launched on PC in the West at all. The long Japanese head start that defined the series' history had shrunk to months.

Zestiria's afterlife is unusually televisual. ufotable's Tales of Zestiria the X, a full anime series from July 2016, adapts the game and devotes a celebrated arc to Velvet Crowe, folding the then-upcoming Berseria into the broadcast. Between the anime, the four-designer art books and the game's role as Berseria's sequel-in-reverse, Zestiria functions as the hinge of the modern line.

For collectors, the four credit lines are the attraction: Zestiria goods and guides document all four house artists working one world, the only mothership title that can claim it, and its Japanese guidebooks cover both the PlayStation 3 original and the expanded content of the Western-era versions.