GB Feature: Sands of Salzaar Review

With the game having concluded its Early Access period and reached its official release milestone earlier this month, we wanted to take the time to give Han-Squirrel Studio’s unique RPG Sands of Salzaar a proper critique. A little something from our four-page article:

You have a vast open-world populated by five major factions, each with its own unit upgrade tree. These factions have major settlements and smaller outposts that produce resources, send out villagers and caravans, and generally do their own thing. The factions oftentimes decide to expand their territory at their neighbors’ expense by sending out armies led by heroes. These heroes can switch sides, go independent, or even join you as companions with a unique personality and skill tree. Oftentimes, they also have some unique personal quest.

Speaking of quests. Unlike Mount & Blade that fully leans into the whole sandbox thing, Sands of Salzaar combines it with a more traditional RPG approach where on top of procedurally generated quests you mostly use to make some quick cash or improve your relations with various characters or factions, you also have the big main quest, your unique class quest, companion quests, and various side stories you can discover while exploring.