Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) is a visually exceptional roguelike developed by miHoYo. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.

Zenless Zone Zero Review Overview

What is Zenless Zone Zero?

Set in a post-apocalyptic metropolitan city called New Eridu, the last urban civilization that survived the apocalypse. As New Eridu continued to survive and thrive, inhabitants were able to combat the materializing Hollows that brought disaster, ruin, and the Ethereal monsters to life within its pocket dimensions.

Zenless Zone Zero features very stylish fast-paced action combat with a gorgeously fluid and cinematic art style. Players will be able to execute all sorts of attacks and combos to defeat the dangerous Ethereals. It will also implement roguelike features into its exploration.

Zenless Zone Zero features:
　⚫︎　Roguelike progression
　⚫︎　Urban jungle-themed environments
　⚫︎　Character gacha
　⚫︎　Real-time combat
　⚫︎　RPG-like character progression

For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Zenless Zone Zero's gameplay and story.

Epic

Playstation

Google Play

App Store

Zenless Zone Zero Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Well-Defined Models Incredible Animations Pretty-As-Heck Interface	Terrible QTE System Mixed Bag of Character Designs Unimpressive Roguelike Progression

Zenless Zone Zero Overall Score - 72/100

Zenless Zone Zero is miHoYo’s impressive and proper foray into the world of roguelikes. While the gameplay can certainly use a few improvements here and there, particularly with the impact of its upgrades and its terrible QTE system, it’s still an incredible piece of work. The audiovisuals are nothing short of outstanding, and the expressiveness of each character stands out among its peers and competitors. Be warned, however, that it also uses the developers’ standard 50/50 system in its gacha.

Zenless Zone Zero Story - 7/10

Pacing is quite important in telling a story, sure, but context is also just as essential. Zenless Zone Zero nails this idea properly by avoiding topics that require deep rabbit hole dives into its lore early on in the story. However, the narration contrasts a lot with the game’s more lively style, and the dialogues are often too stuffy to be engaging.

Zenless Zone Zero Gameplay - 5/10

While Zenless Zone Zero’s combat runs very smoothly, with some particularly explosive moments that leave you wanting more, the majority of it is filled with dull stretches of hitting combos that barely matter while waiting for your skill gauge to top up. But its most offensive flaw is the extremely intrusive QTE system, which regularly stops the combat’s fast pace dead in its tracks just to force you to follow its instructions. Aside from that, it’s roguelike progression is barely noticeable due to the lack of specializations you can opt into.

Zenless Zone Zero Visuals - 9/10

To say that Zenless Zone Zero’s visuals are impressive is a massive understatement. There’s little doubt that the developers made great efforts to make the game as visually pleasing as possible. Not only is the model quality excellent, but even the animation and camera work are nothing short of outstanding. The only real issue here is that many of the characters have pretty unimpressive designs.

Zenless Zone Zero Audio - 8/10

Zenless Zone Zero has a very nice set of sound effects that appropriately delivers the well-rounded combat experience. The voice acting is also pretty good as a bonus, which helps in making fights more animated. Unfortunately, the sound effects do sound a bit muffled, and much of the regular grind doesn’t come with voice acting to give it life.

Zenless Zone Zero Value for Money - 7/10

Featuring the all-too-familiar 50/50 system, Zenless Zone Zero’s gacha can be a wild ride of joys and heartbreaks within a very short period of time. Combine this with the game’s meager economy, and you’ll be forced to skip multiple banners to guarantee characters that you really want. On the other hand, the game’s roguelike system makes for a very replayable game that isn’t limited to the boring daily activities that most mobile titles have.

Zenless Zone Zero Review: LOOKS Amazing…

It’s no secret that miHoYo, the developers of Zenless Zone Zero, has had their eyes on the roguelike and rogue-lite genres for several years now. Honkai Impact 3rd had Elysian Realm, Genshin Impact had Imaginarium Theater, and Honkai: Star Rail had Simulated Universe and Divergent Universe. So, it was only really a matter of time before miHoYo would release a title that focused entirely on it.

But despite sharing the ARPG genre with two of its more prominent older sisters, Zenless Zone Zero manages to differentiate itself from them, and even from games with a strong parallel to it such as Punishing Gray Raven and its Cursed Waves mode. That’s because, for those titles, their roguelike modes are just that—a mode.

The most striking thing about Zenless Zone Zero is its aesthetics. It’s a veritable audiovisual feast with a color-rich user interface, impressive (and expressive) character models, and fluid combat. It really goes hard with its style, making it blatantly obvious what the developers’ priorities were.

However, that may also be where its weaknesses lie. While the game’s superficial qualities are top-notch, it suffers from aspects beyond what the eyes and ears can quickly distinguish.

As a roguelike ARPG, its core gameplay revolves around the usual real-time slap-enemies-around-until-they-despawn combat loop where, once you’re successful, the game rewards your efforts with a random set of upgrades. These upgrades allow you to reach further heights using the same set of characters, but are completely reset when you fail the scenario.

Roguelikes have various aspects to them that make them appealing. One of those is that their systems support and encourage diversification of playstyles. For example, in Honkai: Star Rail, you can do a run that relies solely on Damage Over Time (DOT), or one that makes full use of Follow-Up Attacks instead. These upgrades allow you to form each run in accordance with your team.

In Zenless Zone Zero’s case, the upgrades (Resonia) that you obtain after every run might have different effects, but they lack the qualities necessary to create diversification. That is, the effects don’t make enough of an impact to truly change or adapt to your playstyle.

The reason lies in the fact that most of the Resonia you obtain only increases certain stats either passively or under certain conditions. While that’s a bit of a given for the passive bonuses, the conditional ones will rarely, if ever, require you to do something that you hadn’t already been doing in the first place. In addition, most Resonias don’t deal with conditions that only certain characters have access to.

For example, one of Honkai: Star Rail’s team archetypes specialize in dealing large amounts of damage through the use of DOT effects. In the Simulated Universe, you can take dozens of upgrades that make use of and strengthen their effects. But in Zenless Zone Zero, the upgrades are spread so far apart that you can only take a few of such specialized upgrades that it doesn’t feel at all impactful.

But aside from that, the biggest issue in Zenless Zone Zero is that its own combat mechanics are detrimental to the experience. Specifically, its Quick Time Event (QTE) mechanic is so intrusive that it stops the fight for a few seconds demanding for you to switch into another character, and its gauge-based skills mean that most of your time fighting enemies will be spent either stringing combos that don’t technically matter, or using an uncharged skill that hits like a wet noodle.

Unfortunately, as Zenless Zone Zero is an action RPG at heart, you will be exposed to its flawed combat system extensively. While the roguelike progression through Resonias is pretty underwhelming, it pales in comparison to the kind of disappointment you’ll get in fights.

Thankfully, the game is so visually appealing that it’s hard to completely dislike it.

Pros of Zenless Zone Zero

Things Zenless Zone Zero Got Right
Well-Defined Models Incredible Animations Pretty-As-Heck Interface

Well-Defined Models

Zenless Zone Zero’s character models are undoubtedly a cut above the rest. While many other mobile games seem like they’re trying to recreate a flat plane with their 3D models, ZZZ’s are blatantly three-dimensional. This gives them a truly solid presence on your screen, where depth is as important as breadth. In combat, the developers use this aspect to great effect with the great camera angles they employ using cut-ins.

Incredible Animations

Each character’s expressiveness is a treat to watch in the game’s story scenarios. The way their faces twist and turn with every changing emotion gives the game a lot of life, especially in these sections where some could get bored with all of the exposition.

The work done on its animation manifests in more than just its cutscenes, though. It’s also there for all to see as you engage in Hollow Zero Investigations (basically dungeon diving). That’s because, while its combat certainly isn’t very flashy, each character’s movements are well-defined and telegraphed. This allows you to keep track of your agent easily, despite however many things are happening on the screen simultaneously.

Each skill cut-ins are quite impressive as well, which also fully utilizes the game’s impressive camera use.

Pretty-As-Heck Interface

Zenless Zone Zero’s interface reflects its nature as a game; a lively, energetic title full of the nice kind of vibes that you would expect from a populated downtown market. Similarly, its UI is a colorful and rich collage of buttons and icons that resemble old electronics.

This liveliness is particularly noticeable in the character deployment screen. It’s almost as if the game refuses to stand still for a moment as it displays each character with an idle animation of looking around, breathing, and blinking.

Cons of Zenless Zone Zero

Things That Zenless Zone Zero Can Improve
Terrible QTE System Mixed Bag of Character Designs Unimpressive Roguelike Progression

Terrible QTE System

As an action game, Zenless Zone Zero had an obligation to present an incredible combat experience to its players. To that end, it implemented great features such as its fighting game-inspired combos and, most notably, parrying. However, it definitely tripped over when implementing its QTE system, which is markedly terrible enough to ruin the entire thing.

Simply put, its QTE system, referred to as Chain Attacks in the game, function by putting you essentially on pause for a couple of seconds when you hit a stunned enemy with something that has a "heavy attack" effect. Then, it displays a depleting bar, showing you an allotted time where you can switch to a different character to perform the Chain Attack with. Time only resumes once the bar completely runs out or when you continue the Chain Attack.

This system is incredibly problematic since that pause does nothing but to put a damper on the combat’s already middling pace. But perhaps the most annoying part about this system is that you can’t do anything to force yourself out of this state. The game is essentially yelling at you to perform the Chain Attack, or be stuck there for the next couple of seconds watching your character’s dramatic pose.

If only this didn’t happen often, there would be no problem. But it does, since every enemy in the game can be stunned. In fact, there’s an entire class of characters that specialize in stunning opponents.

Mixed Bag of Character Designs

While uniformity does make a world based on societies and civilizations look more realistic, that’s not quite an excuse to have characters that barely look different from an NPC. While there are a number of characters with a unique appeal, such as Nicole, Lycaon, Ellen, and Koleda, the vast majority of the characters don’t have the same striking quality to them as one would expect.

Unimpressive Roguelike Experience

Roguelikes tend to pride themselves on creating wildly different scenarios and experiences depending on your luck, there’s barely any of that in Zenless Zone Zero. The main issue is the lack of variety in the way bonuses are provided as you clear stages that really make an impact.

Sure, there are upgrades that have conditionals attached to them, but these are rarely requirements that make you do things that you wouldn’t already be doing in the first place. If anything, the game should commit to more exclusive upgrades and prepare Resonias that only affect a certain subset of characters.

Is Zenless Zone Zero Worth It?

Worth A Try

While Zenless Zone Zero’s gameplay is certainly something to think twice about, its audiovisuals are impressive enough to leave a lasting impression. And since gameplay generally evolves after a few updates, there’s little doubt that Zenless Zone Zero will only improve going forward.

However, do keep in mind that this game will take up a whopping 50GB on your drive if you’re on PC. That’s more than double the size of Wuthering Waves and almost 10GB larger than Honkai: Star Rail.

Still, I definitely recommend at least checking the game out!

Platforms
Epic	Playstation	Google Play	App Store

Zenless Zone Zero FAQ

Is Zenless Zone Zero a gacha game?

Yes, players must engage in its gacha system to pull for Agents and Bangboos.

Does Zenless Zone Zero have an open world?

The game features a limited open world where you can explore the streets and alleys of your locale, but combat is limited in instanced dungeons where physical barriers exist.

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Zenless Zone Zero Product Information

Title	ZENLESS ZONE ZERO
Release Date	July 4, 2024
Developer	miHoYo
Publisher	miHoYo
Supported Platforms	PC(EGS), PlayStation 5, iOS, Android
Genre	Action, RPG
Number of Players	1
Rating	Rating Pending
Official Website	Zenless Zone Zero Official Website

Alfonso Majarucon

Writer of things from game, anime and manga reviews to news and webnovels. Hopelessly addicted to story-driven games, especially cross-platform ones. Favorite games include Punishing Gray Raven, Arknights, Limbus Company, Elden Ring, Touhou, Soul Nomad and the Disgaea series (except 3 and 6). Avid..