Developer Hoyoverse is a prominent name in the gaming sphere thanks to the success of excellent action-RPGs like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. With Zenless Zone Zero (aka ZZZ ), Hoyoverse blends urban, beat ’em up swagger and intense tag-team combat with its familiar, free-to-play gacha formula. The result is a wonderfully stylized and addictive mobile, PlayStation, and PC game that looks and plays great, but lacks the exploration chops that make its predecessors so distinct.
Zenless Zone Zero’s Story and Setting
ZZZ takes place in New Eridu, a sprawling cityscape plagued with bizarre anomalies called Hollows. These massive black holes appear out of thin air and warp the city, transforming the surrounding zone into Escherian labyrinths. The Hollows are rich in Ether, a potent energy source for New Eridu. However, Ether also corrupts living beings, mutating them into dangerous crystalline monstrosities.
(Credit: Hoyoverse/PCMag)
The city administration investigates and manages Hollow outbreaks while pushing bizarre pro-New Eridu propaganda that hints at a deeper and more nefarious purpose behind the government’s involvement and the Hollows’ existence. You play as a Proxy, a guide for Hollow-exploring agents operating outside the administration’s control. Agents are your muscle, the playable characters you send into the Hollow. This is the framework for ZZZ’s mission-based structure and gameplay loop.
You can venture into large city areas, but the exploration is radically more limited than Genshin Impact or Honkai: Star Rail. These maps have no climbing, progression, or puzzles. Instead, they are simply a means for you to interact with NPCs and initiate new quests, with the occasional treasure box peppered here and there.
Stylish Combat
Combat is ZZZ’s biggest draw, and it’s notably more frenetic than previous Hoyoverse titles. Impressively smooth animations and exaggerated keyframes make each action pop. The fighting has depth, too. It’s mechanically richer than Genshin Impact, with each character having many more moves. There’s a basic and special attack, dodge and dodge counter, and dash and dash attack.
In addition to those core abilities, each character has a special gimmick. For example, Nicole has several projectile special attacks, depending on whether you tap or hold the button (and if you buffer a 360-degree motion during the attack’s charge). Anby can insert her special attack uppercut at key points in her basic melee combo, giving her a greater ability to stun enemies. This flexibility makes the action engrossing and satisfying.
(Credit: Hoyoverse/PCMag)
Generally, you form a party of three characters before going on a mission. You control a single fighter, cycling between others as needed. Unique to ZZZ are assists, which let you extend combos, save characters from damage, or deflect incoming attacks. This is done by tapping the swap button when an enemy winds up for an attack. The action summons the next character in your team queue.
Assists create more synergistic gameplay, encouraging you to leverage all characters rather than sticking with your favorite. The dynamic camera angles and clanging sound effects give these assists awesome feedback, making them highly satisfying. Unfortunately, you can’t manually select which character acts as an assist. Still, it’s a relatively minor gripe, and the current system does a good job of keeping the combat flowing nicely.
ZZZ’s combat is great despite lacking Ninja Gaiden’s finesse and Bayonetta’s free-form combo insanity. Add an ever-expanding roster, with new ones introduced every month or so, and you have a lot to sink your teeth into.
(Credit: Hoyoverse/PCMag)
Dungeon-Crawling Woes
Most of ZZZ’s exploration is done via the Monitor Array. This represents the Proxy’s computerized view of the Hollows, and it’s depicted as grid-like maps. Thematically, it’s a cool idea. The displayed areas can have hazards, power-ups, puzzles, and enemy encounters, allowing for a varied dungeon-crawling experience.
The problem is that the system feels radically removed from the direct 1:1 movement and feedback you get from regular combat. This dissonance makes the Monitor Array far less engaging than the normal action; it feels like a chore. On a good note, Hoyoverse has minimized Monitor Array’s role via game updates. Still, no meaningful exploration outside the Monitor Array system makes ZZZ’s world somewhat empty and superficial.
(Credit: Hoyoverse/PCMag)
Monetization and Responsible Spending
ZZZ is free to play, which is impressive considering its polish. You start the game with a handful of characters and temporary allies that join you during key story sections. However, you must engage with ZZZ’s gacha system like other Hoyoverse releases if you want a team of superstar agents.
The game awards you with gacha currency, called Polychromes, when you complete daily quests, weekly quests, and event and story missions. With it, you can purchase Master Tapes and Encrypted Tapes to pull characters from the Standard and Limited banners, respectively. You aren’t guaranteed a character, so you must gamble with your hard-earned Polychromes via banner pulls.
Of course, you can purchase Polychromes with real money—this is where the financial danger emerges. This speeds up the character recruitment process, but it’s very costly. A single banner pull costs about $2.50, but it takes 90 pulls to guarantee a premier character. Even then, you only have a 50% chance of getting the one you want.
The costs quickly add up, so we encourage you not to engage with this system if you don’t have the discipline to gamble responsibly. Zenless Zone Zero is perfectly playable without spending money, and the game awards you with a steady trickle of Polychromes. Don’t let FOMO drive you to reckless spending.
(Credit: Hoyoverse/PCMag)
Can Your PC Run Zenless Zone Zero?
Hoyoverse is surprisingly adept at optimizing its games for PCs and mobile devices, and ZZZ is no exception. The game should run well on a system with a seventh-generation Intel Core i5 CPU, an Nvidia GTX 970 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and Windows 10, even on high settings.
We tested ZZZ on a desktop PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and 16GB of RAM. The overall performance was excellent, with smooth 60-frames-per-second action. It performs even better on current-gen iPhones and iPads, with a 120fps option. ZZZ supports gamepads, keyboards, and mice on PC.
Why You Should Game on a PC
Verdict: Big Action, Little Exploration
Zenless Zone Zero is an action-RPG full of fun and flourish. It’s much closer to a beat ’em up than Genshin Impact or Honkai: Star Rail, feeling more like a straightforward action game. However, it lacks much of the exploratory gameplay elements in those earlier Hoyoverse games, streamlining the gameplay loop to linear combat missions and panel-driven dungeon crawling. If you go in expecting flashy mission-based action and excellent visuals, you’ll have a great time. But if you want overall deeper gameplay, check out our Editors’ Choice winners, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
Pros
The Bottom Line
Zenless Zone Zero delivers adrenaline-pumping action with gorgeous visuals and art direction, but it lacks meaningful exploration.
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About Gabriel Zamora
