While most of the RPGs and most of the modern games never let You fail so much that it won't be possible to continue after resorting to the most recent save, some of the titles You list as the main source of influence (X-Com, JA2) did. A couple of screwed missions against aliens meant a player lost experienced soldiers, lost equipment and financial sources are cut so it was difficult to rebuild. Will it be similar in ZRPG?

Yes, definitely. If you lose assets and allies, you will have a harder time, but on the other hand, you can still get out there and try to replace them - though we have a finite number of allies and resources in the world. I think the game is about hard choices, and I think that the setting will help reinforce rather than frustrate players when they lose people or allies get infected or they make enemies of one of the tougher groups. To be fair, we have allies warn players when actions have repercussions and we give players an "unconsciousness" buffer when someone hits 0 HP in order to let the player try to save them before they die/get killed, but there's definitely a lot of risk/reward involved in our game. Because of some of the randomness, I think players can expect the game throwing some different stuff at them on each playthrough, similar to Civilization or X-Com. We also have several levels of difficulty that will let players choose the amount of risk they feel comfortable with.
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