HoYoverse has a pretty well-rounded set of titles. Among its most popular ones are Genshin Impact and most recently, Honkai: Star Rail. The two titles offered something different. One is an open-world adventure while the other is an exciting turn-based game. Their latest, we would describe as an action RPG with some puzzle-like navigation. That’s Zenless Zone Zero. 

Urban, Cyberpunk-ish aesthetic 

HoYoverse has taken us from a high-fantasy world all the way to space. With Zenless Zone Zero, the setting is a little more grounded. The game is set in an urban city called New Eridu. But things are a little grim. It’s the last surviving civilization in a world destroyed by Hollows. 

Hollows are sort of pocket dimensions that appear out of nowhere within New Eridu. Each Hollow is infested with monsters called Ethereals and The Corrupted.

The Ethereals are monsters from the get go but The Corrupted are regular people who were exposed too long inside the Hollow and have since converted into Ethereal-like monsters. 

But the Hollows are also home to some choice resources that’s why there are Hollow Raiders and Proxies. This is what players will play as. The main characters you’ll choose from are the brother-sister pair that are famous Proxies who help guide Hollow Raiders. 

Other than Ethereals, players will also encounter lawless thugs as well as Persons of Authorities inside the Hollows. It’s a mish-mash of people with similar goals resulting in inevitable conflict. 

Hollow Raiders. Agents, and Proxies

Belle and Wise are the two main characters you’ll choose from. They run a video shop as a facade but in reality, they work as Proxies who aid Hollow Raiders. They guide the Hollow Raiders into the Hollows with what is called a Bangboo. 

Bangboos are bunny-looking robot-like devices that were meant to help evacuate people from Hollows. It’s also essentially this game’s mascot. 

The Hollow Raiders or Agents, meanwhile, are the ones you control in battle. They are also the characters you’ll pull once the Gacha mechanic kicks in. To start you get control of three of them: Anby, Billy, and Nicole. 

Anby is a blade-wielder. She fights fast and fluidly. Billy is a gun-slinger and is great for fighting multiple enemies. Nicole is a… a bombshell. She hits enemies with a briefcase she carries which also happens to fire an exploding projectile. You’ll spend a big chunk of the early game with these three.

Blitzing combat 

Easily the most entertaining part of Zenless Zone Zero is its combat. At first, it feels like your standard action game mixing light and heavy attacks with special moves that have cooldowns. 

What elevates the combat is how each character handles and the flashy tag-team attacks they deploy. For instance, Anby’s blade attacks will give those who played SCARLET NEXUS flashbacks as her play-style feels a lot like the melee combat of Yuito Sumiragi. But then you get to Billy and Nicole who have totally different play styles. 

Billy reminds me a lot of the comic book character Grifter of Wildcats. They’re both masked double pistol specialists. Billy’s tag-in attack is great with dealing with multiple enemies and, naturally, doing damage from a distance. 

Nicole, meanwhile, is a mix of melee and projectile attacks. Her normal and heavy attacks have her swinging her weapon but her tag-in and special has her firing a bomb at your opponent. 

We weren’t lucky enough to draw any new characters during my playthrough but we suspect they will all have their own unique flavor to them. We honestly can’t wait to try them out. 

Exploration and maze/puzzle 

The quieter parts of the game have you play as either of the MCs to roam around a safe part of New Eridu. Here you can freely walk around a small area and talk to its inhabitants.

The ramen shop gives you boosts for your next foray into the hollows. And the other areas are for weapons and what have you. This particular part gives off Persona 5 vibes.

And then there’s the part where you’re trying to make your way through a hollow. It’s presented in this puzzle/maze-like format where you have your bangboo move around CRT-like TVs. Each TV acts like a zone in the hollow. You have to cleverly make your way through to grab bonus items, avoid battle encounters (some you just can’t), and ultimately find spots where you can exit. 

This, admittedly, was the part of the gameplay that felt slow at first. But over time, the puzzles and maze became a little more of a challenge. It turned into somewhat of a mini-game but it is, actually, a crucial part of ZZZ. 

Performance and platforms 

Zenless Zone Zero is available to play on PC, Android, and iOS. For the purposes of this preview, we played the PC build on a Legion Go. It ran perfectly fine on the handheld gaming PC. We experienced minor lags and stuttering during some segments of the game but that’s understandable since this isn’t the final build. 

There were also a couple of instances when the game just flat out stopped functioning that we were forced to restart the Legion Go itself. But this was early on in the testing and never happened again. 

The art style lends itself nicely to even lower graphics settings. If you’re playing, try to prioritize getting high frame rates as that becomes pretty crucial in the combat parts of the game. 

Should you play Zenless Zone Zero? 

How many Gacha/Live Service games can you fit in your life? With HoYoverse alone, there’s already plenty. But the particular setting and aesthetic of Zenless Zone Zero, it’s definitely worth giving a try. 

The familiar Gacha elements are there except you’re in an entirely different setting compared to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. We can also say that among the three, Zenless Zone Zero feels and looks the most different. 

If cyberpunk, animé action is your thing, then you should definitely look out for this game when it officially launches.