Tales of Zestiria is coming to Steam

Namco Bandai Namco has announced that, not only is Tales of Zestiria getting a Western release, but that it will also arrive on Steam. Woohoo? I'll admit, I'm not familiar with the Tales series, but this announcement seems to be making the people who like This Sort Of Thing pretty happy.

I was going to make a joke about Tales of Zestiria being set in a fictional world of lemon people, but then I looked at Wikipedia and saw that the game's name does in fact refer "to the 'zest' of the main characters." Once again, JRPGs prove beyond parody.

Thanks to the magic of press releases, I can tell you what the plot is:

"An unseen evil force known as Malevolence is spreading across the land, corrupting the world and causing humanity to falter. Players will embark on an epic journey as Sorey, a young pure-hearted adventurer whose destiny is to become The Shepherd, an individual of great power that can banish Malevolence. Does Sorey have the courage and heart to wield this extraordinary responsibility for good, or will he fall prey to the evils of its power?"

I can also tell you that Tales of Zestiria tweaks the series' real-time battles to enable faster combat and new combo opportunities. Then I can tell you that, "Because of Sorey’s unique ability to communicate with the Seraphim he is able to fuse with their essence to create new elemental artes for strategic attacks to decimate foes." I don't know what any of these things mean, but I can tell you them.

Tales of Zestiria will be available on Steam on October 20.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.