As I sat in a press preview with Anshar Publishing for its upcoming CRPG, Zoria: Age of Shattering, one piece of feedback the team received caused my ears to perk up: Too much loot.

This is something I've never once heard as a complaint in an RPG before. Sure, some looter shooters can be overflowing with useless gear, and even some RPGs can find bags overflowing with stuff, but my hoarder mentality in MMOs and RPGs tells me there can never be too much stuff to have. What if I need it someday?

Well, that's the mentality players will need to adopt when Zoria: Age of Shattering releases next month. There is a method to the developer's madness here, and you will need those five chest pieces someday indeed.

Zoria can be described as part exploration RPG, part tactical combat RPG and part outpost management sim. Throughout the runtime of the CRPG you'll be doing all this - from exploring the original and expansive world of Zoria to uncover lore, mysteries, new areas and more, to managing over 50+ followers and your base of operations in its outpost mode. 

While exploring the world of Zoria, you'll come across points of interest, lore, and, as Tiny Trinket's Stefan Nitescu put in in our presentation, things you shouldn't click on. 

"We don't have mimics, but we have our own way of making it fun," Nitescu tells me with a chuckle.

How you get around that environment is also influenced by your class, as each of Zoria's seven starting classes has its own way of interacting with the environment. An example was the Wizard who apparently dabbles as a civil engineer on the side, able to summon bridges to help cross gaps and ford rivers. The Priest, meanwhile, performs their priestly duties by dispelling miasma when needed so the party can pass through. The goal of having these individual interactions for each class is getting you to swap between characters regularly, instead of just sticking with your main and beelining through the content. 

While out adventuring, you'll come across spots where you're going to need to rest and recover from your journey, so you can also make camp in the overworld. However, you can't recover Fatigue, one of the key stats that affect your character's ability to function in combat, so this is recovered by resting at your outpost.

Outpost Management

This is a large chunk of Zoria's appeal for someone like me, personally. Outposts give you a base of operations, a place to regroup, rearm, tinker with your build, and even send followers on missions of their own while you're off doing something else.

It's here at the outpost that you'll level up your party and manage the party itself as well. With Zoria keeping the followers and loot flowing like spice on Arrakis, there should be plenty to keep even an inventory hoarder like me busy. 

Stefan also brings up one of the major influences on Zoria when describing the outpost part of the CRPG: XCOM. One reason the Tiny Trinket devs shower you with stuff and followers is to break the cycle of having a preferred team that, if something happens to them, you don't really have a backup to fall back on. Stefan gives an example that, in XCOM, you might have characters that are way over-leveled compared to the rest of your compatriots, yet they get wounded in battle and are out of commission for 30 in-game days. As a result, you have to fall back on characters you haven't spent much time in, aren't geared out properly, and more.

"We all have our favorites," Stefan mentions. 

Zoria gets around this by using its outpost to send followers on their own missions to level up while you're adventuring with another party. Through these unattended missions, followers will gain experience, and can even bring back valuable materials needed for crafting back at the outpost while doing so - and it keeps you from having to worry about bringing an under-leveled character into battle with your main party, should the need arise.

This isn't an auto-play function like we see in mobile MMOs, it should be noted. You are still doing a lot of heavy lifting with the main party - but if the need arises, the multitude of followers are ready for action when you need them most.

You'll also do some crafting which makes new powerful items, while you can do a bit of alchemy to make kit to help you in combat or while you're exploring. I am eager to check out the cooking myself, as I fancy myself an amateur chef both in games and real life, and through cooking you'll be able to manage some fatigue whilst on the road. It's survival-esque, without the mechanics that make those style games tedious overall.

Combat in Zoria

So when you're not managing the gaggle of followers, all the loot, your outpost, or exploring, what else is there to do? 

Fight, of course.

Zoria: Age of Shattering's combat is traditional CRPG faire- it's turn-based, tactical, and as Tiny Trinket puts it, dynamic. This is where some of the old-school CRPG influences clearly live, as the times I've played Zoria I can feel a little XCOM, a little Fallout (the original, not the behemoth Bethesda morphed it into), and more. 

Zoria's combat really emphasizes group composition and working together to achieve the goal. Planning your party and how each character approaches combat so they synergize with the rest is key to overcoming some of Zoria's harder challenges. Like many CRPGs, Zoria utilizes action points, focus, and a mana or energy resource in battle to take down enemies. But one aspect that might turn heads and get people excited is the time it takes to finish a fight.

I've had encounters in XCOM, Baldur's Gate 3 and more that take upwards of an hour to complete, as these inevitably devolve into complex messes that I have to sort through. Zoria's Nitescu tells me that the aim is for combat to take, at most, ten minutes. 

One of the ways Nitescu tells me that the team has quickened the pace is by not having a ton of skills that trigger endlessly on top of each other, as we see in other CRPGs. There is some interaction to be sure, but you aren't going to get stuck in trigger loops that slow down combat to a grind like you can in other tactical RPGs. 

Additionally, if you favor speed even more, you can speed up the combat animations to shorten the time you're in a fight, which is a nice touch for those who just want to get back to exploring Zoria's handcrafted world.

This isn't to say there isn't depth here, though. Speed doesn't mean simple, and in my time with Zoria I've found plenty of instances where combat slowed because I found myself thinking long and hard about unit placement, where to deploy a skill, and more. That tactical element is there in full force, but it shouldn't be a slog, according to the team.

Zoria also wants to ensure that there is no friction if you happen to lose a follower - to limit save scumming, so to speak. As a result, there is no death mechanic in Zoria: Age of Shattering. You and your followers cannot die in combat - so if you lose a fight, you all wake up in the wilderness with one HP and some status effects, but there is no permadeath.

For someone like me, I appreciate this. I can't count the number of times I've started an XCOM or original Baldur's Gate run over because a character I really liked died in combat, never to be seen again. Stefan says this is in place to specifically stop players from doing that and instead stay in the world and have fun.

That isn't to say there isn't a penalty for losing - you'll need to heal up your characters, using resources and crafted materials, as well as handle fatigue while on the road. But you don't have to worry about grabbing the next character in your stable of 50 followers because your party is dropping like flies. 

When I asked if Zoria would have a harder permadeath mode, Nitescu told me that the devs - which it should be noted that Zoria is being built by a team of three people - hadn't really considered it.

"We really didn't consider it," Stefan says. "I learned to do save scumming in UFO - back before it was named XCOM. DOS Gaming -that was some hardcore times for gaming. We didn't really think it would cater to a lot of players. Making the combat harder, making enemies hit harder, making healing have less of an impact - that forces you to change your strategy." 

The Road to Launch

As part of Steam's Next Fest, Zoria: Age of Shattering's demo is out there for players to check out this interesting little title from Tiny Trinket. We've previewed it a few times and have enjoyed what we've played each time, and given that CRPG's are having something of a renaissance thanks to the success of Pillars of Eternity, Baldur's Gate 3, and more, Zoria: Age of Shattering feels like it's coming in at the right time. 

Zoria: Age of Shattering releases on PC March 7th for $24.99.