Playing with nostalgic imagery from the early 2000s, Zenless Zone Zero sees developer Hoyoverse gracefully veering from the fantasy settings of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail into a charming urban dystopia. It’s a universe where you’ll duke it out in spectacular real-time battles as a trio of streetwear-clad agents, solving simple puzzles as their handler between battles to help them navigate the maze of encounters – and that’s when you get into the carousel of social activities layered on top. A mouthful of luscious effects blends into something effortlessly stylish, but also a little inconsistent, sometimes marred by a lack of depth. Yet Zenless Zone Zero managed to draw me in
Zenless Zone Zero takes place in a world where monster-filled pocket dimensions called Hollows have devastated civilization. While much of humanity has perished, the cyberpunk citadel of New Eridu survives through a macabre co-dependence with the Hollows and the valuable resources found within. You play as either Belle or Wise, a brother-sister hacker duo who have the ability to navigate this dangerous zone, taking on commissions from a list of lovable crooks in search of their next big score. It’s a unique and rigorous setup that, while complex at times, kept me engaged by testing my strategic intuition in a set of challenges that I became hungry to best.
Your battle journey begins in the retro tech-filled backroom of the siblings’ video rental store, where you’ll choose from an impressive list of unlockable agents to form a party of three and then dive into dangerous Hollows, trading success for XP and upgrade resources. The review build provided by Hoyoverse ahead of launch gave me access to all of the agents currently available, and I soon found an affinity for those from a faction called Victoria Housekeeping, thanks to their charming British lilt and battle maid outfit. My personal favorite of the bunch, the shark-tailed Ellen Jo, wields an icy blade and stacks elemental debuffs on enemies and drops blaze quips in the process. While the makeup of your dream team will largely be in the hands of the gacha gods, as characters are unlocked in the genre’s usual manner of random pull, it’s handy that story missions allow you to try out the cast without needing to pull them first.
As intense as it may seem in motion, Zenless Zone Zero’s combat is forgiving and accessible. You have a basic attack and a dodge to avoid indicated attacks at the right time, as well as the ability to swap to other agents to avoid scratches, parry or combine their combos. Building up the enemy’s Daze meter leads to a consistently satisfying Chain Attack, a slo-mo quick-time event where your ally swoops in to lay the smackdown. Basic and ultimate abilities round out each character’s combat options, though like any good action game, there’s plenty of variety available through a combination of timed button presses and latent passives.
Challenging boss encounters came out to test my reflexes, though as long as I could connect the dots of my battle strategy and anticipate incoming attack patterns to keep a variety of enemies at bay, I rarely felt overwhelmed. Complex build-tinkering systems, difficulty options, and endgame content help push the skill ceiling for challenge-hungry players, but Zenless Zone Zero seems content to stay out of your way if you just want to pick it up and perform some flashy moves. Elegant animations depict most of your attacks, like the way the household demon Van Lycaon puts his metal heel down after a kick. Ultimately, Zenless Zone Zero’s focus is on fulfilling the fantasy of fighting alongside one of its brilliantly designed and passionately voiced characters, rather than trying to make its combat feel like Devil May Cry’s – a compromise I’m comfortable with, even if it means less mechanical depth.
Unfortunately, the dazzling combat is undermined by an overabundance of hacker puzzles, meant to imply the link between your team of agents and the proxies guiding them through the holo from home. You’ll be thrust into a maze of chunky CRT monitors between pockets of combat, pushing a tiny avatar around to trigger mechanisms that lead to your next checkpoint or encounter. The blurry aesthetics of this mode are pleasant to look at, but the process feels arbitrary and kills the momentum. After marching through walls of screens, I started looking for the next encounter as quickly as possible to boost my morale and return to the frantic action sequences that really make the zany Zone Zero engaging.
That overwhelming cycle of taking commissions and then heading to the Hollow to fulfill them could easily be everything and it wouldn’t seem like much, yet surprisingly, it’s only half of what’s here. The other half is a life simulator where you’ll wander around cozy suburbs, manage your heroes’ blockbuster-esque business, and maintain relationships with locals through dialogue-driven side stories in an atmospheric day-night cycle. While not strictly open world, the stunning districts of Zenless Zone Zero are thoughtfully crafted with environmental details that make it a joy to explore. From the rusty riverbanks filled with kids’ rides to the dirty bedrooms and vandalized back alleys, there’s attention paid everywhere that helps center you in this fashion-forward science fiction world.
Once the initial excitement of exploring the Hollows began to cool down, I was drawn to all the extracurricular activities I had at my fingertips. Stocking my video store became the center of my daily routine, as every morning, I began by pairing miscellaneous videotapes from my collection with the genre demands of people. After that, I had to head out in search of better merchandise, completing tasks for locals like solving quirky puzzles or taking editorial photos so I could earn my VHS rewards. That symbiotic process worked well in drawing my attention to various social activities, the money from running my business certainly helped fund my story mission exploits.
This side of Zenless Zone Zero isn’t as focused as the Persona series it’s clearly inspired by, so there are some monotonous sights, but it does offer players an engaging workload to log into and tackle on a daily basis. All of your activities are well-connected via a helpful submenu called Inter-Knot, which helped me find my rhythm amongst all the options I’m given. This in-game, everything app quickly became my best friend, taking on the role of job finder, social media platform, and most importantly, scheduling tool, ensuring I didn’t become completely paralyzed by the overwhelming prospect of what to do next.
I enjoyed escaping my more important responsibilities by chasing high scores in the Godfinger arcade, whose more engaging snake and cave minigames stole too much of my time. But the fun and sometimes profound sub-stories leave the biggest impression, reminding me of the human stakes in this world. One side quest involves a homeless robot whose ghostly silhouette frightens a local citizen, leading to a surprisingly cross-wire situation. Easily forgotten in a sea of ​​charming shopkeepers and in-game currencies, the underlying vulnerability of the post-apocalyptic world of the Zenless Zone Zero is always in frame. Overarching themes of displacement and corruption come across in the cinematic storytelling and the design of its city wards, which range from dilapidated to gentrified.
Given the unusually generous nature of Hoyoverse’s review build, it was hard to get a clear idea of ​​how Zenless Zone Zero’s progression system would hold up long-term, but everything I’ve seen doesn’t match up at all with the developer’s other gacha games. Still, starting over on a fresh account at launch and getting accustomed to grinding in a more organic live service setting will be illuminating (and we’ll be sure to update this review if things unexpectedly fall out of line). Still, I formed a strong attachment to this rich world and its cosplay-friendly characters by the end of a main story that easily takes dozens of hours to complete, and left feeling that this ambitious pivot certainly lives up to the high standards set by Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
