| Zenless Zone Zero | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Register & Pre-Order | Review |
Zenless Zone Zero has reached its one-year milestone this month. Read on to find out what it does well, where it falls short, and whether it’s still worth playing after a year of service!
Zenless Zone Zero Review Overview
What is Zenless Zone Zero?
Set in the post-apocalyptic city of New Eridu—the last surviving urban stronghold after the fall of civilization—humanity has managed to endure and adapt. As the city advanced, its citizens learned to fight back against the mysterious "Hollows," rifts that unleash chaos, destruction, and the otherworldly beings known as Ethereals.
Zenless Zone Zero delivers fast-paced, stylish action combat paired with a sleek, cinematic visual style. Players can unleash a variety of attacks and combos to take down these formidable foes, while exploration elements will incorporate roguelike mechanics for added depth.
Zenless Zone Zero features:
⚫︎ Action RPG core gameplay
⚫︎ Urban jungle-themed environments
⚫︎ Character gacha
⚫︎ Bonding events
⚫︎ Arcade minigames
⚫︎ Real-time combat
⚫︎ Bi-weekly challenge modes
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Zenless Zone Zero's gameplay and story.
| Platforms | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HoYoverse App |
 Playstation |
 Xbox |
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 Epic |
 Google Play |
 App Store |
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| Free-to-play | |||||
Zenless Zone Zero Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Combat Hits Hard and Fast Connections Made Are Rarely Lost Amazing Audio All Around Challenges Live Up to the Name |
Losing TV Mode Really Hurts Press E to Win Supports Stories Always Feel Rushed New Characters Barely Contribute |
Zenless Zone Zero Overall Score - 86/100
Zenless Zone Zero is what you get when you combine combat that finds beauty in simplicity with music that hits all the right notes across decades of recording history. Audiovisually, it’s top-tier, featuring grounded physics, slick animations, and a soundtrack so good it’s worth pausing the game just to listen. But while the gameplay is fluid and rewarding, it’s held back by increasingly shallow support character design and the almost complete loss of its unique exploration mode.
Zenless Zone Zero Story - 7/10
While its plot and character side stories rank among the more compelling in its generation of mobile titles, the game has frustratingly done little to build on that strength in its first year. Most of its story arcs felt noticeably rushed in execution, and even if you follow them through, you’ll find that only a handful of meaningful events actually occurred across several main story updates. It’s as if the talented writers behind it are being actively constrained by the limited scope of each update.
Zenless Zone Zero Gameplay - 8/10
If there’s any aspect of Zenless Zone Zero that’s seen the most turbulence, it would be the gameplay. For the most part, the changes have leaned positive; letting players cancel QTE prompts and vastly improving the roguelike side content were both solid moves, for example. But the gameplay now stumbles in two different, major areas: first, support characters—especially the ones added post-launch—tend to have painfully dull gameplay, often boiling down to pressing one or two buttons before they could finish their job and tag out. Second, the removal of TV mode from the main story segments stripped away a big chunk of what made the game’s presentation feel uniquely its own.
Zenless Zone Zero Visuals - 10/10
In an era where mobile action RPGs often rely on floaty visuals and models that look like they’re tethered to gravity by sheer suggestion, this game stands out as one of the rare few that actually seem to take Newton’s law of universal gravitation seriously. Not only do its models look excellent, but they move and interact in ways that make you feel like, yes, this world is at least loosely grounded in a reality not too far from our own. And yet, despite feeling convincingly weighty, the game still manages to deliver a near sci-fi level of combat satisfaction thanks to its masterful use of camera angles and character animations that somehow feel both solid and cartoonish, as if everyone had their bones removed just for animation purposes.
Zenless Zone Zero Audio - 10/10
It’s honestly hard to put into words just how good Zenless Zone Zero’s entire auditory experience is. In fact, it might be easier to explain it by trying to find something to critique—because there’s basically nothing to nitpick. The sound effects hit like a nailgun, the voice acting is top-notch across the board, and the music—man, only a handful of games have ever made me pause on a screen just to soak it all in, or at least until the track starts looping.
Zenless Zone Zero Value for Money - 8/10
As a game that shares the gacha system of its older sister Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero would have easily landed a solid 7/10 in this area. It’s still accessible to free-to-play players, as long as they’re fine with skipping a few banners now and then. And hey—the game’s free, right? But where Zenless sets itself apart is in how it actually shows respect for the player’s money. Unlike its sibling, it’s demonstrated a clear willingness to elevate previously obsolete characters to genuinely respectable levels and not just as placeholders you cope with while waiting to spend for something better.
Zenless Zone Zero Review: My Go-To Action Jukebox
Another mobile game just hit its first anniversary this past weekend—unless you count the timing of the actual anniversary update instead. Zenless Zone Zero, one of 2024’s standout mobile titles alongside Wuthering Waves and Girls’ Frontline 2, celebrated its one-year milestone on July 4th, after a series of updates that—frankly—felt like a roller coaster ride in terms of quality and direction.
For those unfamiliar or only jumping in after the massive 2.0 overhaul, Zenless Zone Zero launched to generally above-average reviews. It wasn’t groundbreaking by any means, but it clearly had potential—albeit buried under a fair bit of jank that plagued its early days.
Take TV Mode, for instance. This quirky, grid-based exploration system was meant to feel retro and distinct with a modern flair, but ended up bogging down the main story with stop-and-go pacing and excessive exposition at every turn. Combat, too, while stylish and fast-paced on the surface, often came to a halt just to force players into its cinematic Chain Attack system—an otherwise cool feature that quickly wore out its welcome due to overuse and the fact that you can’t opt out of it.
Absolutely Amazing Audio
Thankfully, one thing that hasn’t changed is the music. Every single track still hits hard—so much so that I often find myself lingering on certain screens just to keep listening. Special shoutout, of course, to the song that plays when you pull an SSR from the gacha. I still can’t tell if it’s trying to comfort me whenever I lose the 50/50, but honestly, I like it so much I’ve stopped caring.
Looking back, I didn’t give the soundtrack nearly enough praise in my original review. In my opinion, Zenless Zone Zero wouldn’t be half as good without its music. It doesn’t just enhance the experience—it defines it. Even the character theme songs, which barely get any playtime in-game, are so good it feels like a crime they’re not featured more prominently.
And the audio excellence doesn’t stop there. The sound effects might just make this one of the most immersive action games I’ve played. Everything—from the gentle pitter-patter of each character’s footsteps to the sharp, satisfying snap of a parry (even from someone like Jane Doe who parries with her bare legs)—adds to the sheer tactile pleasure of the gameplay.
Honestly, there’s no proper way to play this game except with the volume cranked to max.
Almost worth going deaf for, really.
Almost.
Simple, Satisfying Fights
Back when Zenless Zone Zero launched, I had quite a few gripes with its combat system. Chief among them: you couldn’t opt out of Chain Attacks, most fights devolved into dull brawls until you stunned the enemy, and the roguelike mode felt practically meaningless—no matter what upgrades or items you picked, the outcome rarely changed.
But now? You can skip those flashy Chain Attacks if you want, and the roguelike content has evolved so drastically it’s barely recognizable from the original version.
With that out of the way, we can finally focus on the core of combat—something that, despite the intimidatingly long skill descriptions for some characters, boils down to a very simple loop: either you deal damage, or you help someone else on your team deal even more of it.
Yes, there are no traditional healers here. Tanks are practically pointless because your main damage-dealer—the carry—will be on the field 99% of the time anyway. So instead, they also function like supports. And that’s totally fine. Zenless Zone Zero challenges players in one specific dimension, and it makes them very good at it. It's not really about mastering a character’s intricate moveset, because again, everyone’s designed to do just one or two things well.
What it does teach you is how to master the fundamentals—parrying, dodging, positioning, timing, and everything else. Once you've nailed those, you’ve basically mastered the game. In that sense, ZZZ is surprisingly welcoming to newcomers and could even serve as a gateway into the action RPG genre.
Make no mistake, though; the bi-weekly challenge modes will kick your behind if you're not familiar enough with the game.
Losing the TV Mode Really Hurt, Though
One of the major changes the developers made after Zenless Zone Zero’s launch was the eventual removal of TV Mode in all but a small handful of its main content. For those who joined the game later and have no idea what that means, TV Mode was ZZZ’s original, and genuinely unique, approach to exploration. It replaced the standard third-person dungeon crawling we've all grown so used to that we’ve stopped questioning whether it could be done differently.
Instead of running through 3D environments, you navigated Hollows—essentially dungeons—like a retro adventure game, reminiscent of early Game Boy titles. Your team was represented by a Bangboo, the game’s adorable mascot, and the entire map was visualized as a grid made up of TV screens. It wasn’t just visually distinct either—TV Mode came packed with fun mechanics like ghost chases and even bomberman-style mini-events that added charm and unpredictability.
And yes, it had its flaws. It could be painfully stop-and-go in certain story segments, dragging the pace down with constant interruptions. But it was creative. It gave the game a flavor that set it apart.
Unfortunately, those flaws—though valid—were repeated and magnified such that they became the dominant narrative. As a result, TV Mode was all but removed from the game. What we’re left with now is exploration that feels like it could’ve been ripped from almost any modern action RPG.
It’s a real shame. TV Mode wasn’t perfect, but it dared to be different. And now, in its absence, Zenless Zone Zero feels just a little more ordinary.
Redundant and Excessively Simple Characters Becoming the Norm
Zenless Zone Zero originally launched with five distinct classes and five elemental types. Eventually, that roster expanded to six apiece with the introduction of Yixuan and Miyabi—bringing in the new Rupture class and Frost element, respectively.
Now, you'd expect these additions to shake things up the same way the original five did. After all, each class had a clear identity: Attackers leaned into raw damage scaling off ATK and Crit, while Supports did what you'd expect—buffing, healing, and enabling their teammates. Elements, too, came with predictable but distinct effects: Burn inflicted damage over time, Assault accelerated stun buildup, and so on.
So, what exactly did Rupture and Frost bring to the table? Did they revolutionize team building or add meaningful depth?
Not really.
Take Frost, for instance. Miyabi’s new element may be thematically unique, but mechanically, it’s just Ice 2: Electric Boogaloo. It behaves like a separate element on paper, but not in any way that feels new during gameplay. In fact, it comes with a few drawbacks that feel like clumsy balancing acts to keep Miyabi’s otherwise overwhelming kit in check.
Rupture, meanwhile, was introduced to deal with the 2.0 patch’s big gimmick: Miasma Armor, a new defensive buff that reduces enemy damage intake until it’s stripped away. Rupture was marketed as the dedicated counter to this mechanic, positioning Yixuan as a near-essential unit for high-end content.
Except… that’s not really how it plays out.
Breaking Miasma Armor isn’t so much about having a Rupture-class character as it is about understanding the game’s core mechanics, encouraging you to repeatedly use ultimates, dodge counters, parries, and so on. Yixuan in particular feels effective against it because of her personal kit—particularly her double ultimates—not because Rupture as a class offers anything inherently special. Truth be told, all of that functionality could’ve just been baked into her character without needing to invent a whole new class label. As it stands, Rupture is more like an Attack subclass with marginally better armor-shredding capabilities.
And while we’re on the topic of new design trends, let’s talk about Supports—because things aren’t looking great there, either.
Since Burnice, support characters—whether offensive, defensive, or hybrid—have trended toward bare-minimum interaction: you swap them in, tap or hold a button or two, and they’re done. Back to the bench they go. In fact, at one point, Supports became so centralizing that both Stunners and Attackers were pushed into near irrelevance. Supports, after all, required little to no field time, and Anomaly units largely bypassed the need for the stun mechanics that Stunners enabled and Attackers depended on.
This reached peak absurdity with Astra Yao, who lets you press a single button, tag out, and still somehow remains useful well beyond her screen time. It makes you wonder if you're still playing the game—or just managing cooldowns and status effects. Worse yet, this hands-off design philosophy has started bleeding into other classes too. Stunners like Ju Fufu, Trigger, and Pulchra now offer similar low-effort, off-field value.
At this point, team building often feels like "the main carry and her merry band." Everyone else exists just to buff, debuff, or occasionally interrupt—rarely staying active long enough to feel like a meaningful part of the fight.
And that’s a real shame, despite that fact making it entry-friendly. Because while Zenless Zone Zero still boasts fluid combat and visual flair, its increasingly streamlined character roles are robbing it of tactical depth and personality.
It’s not too late to course correct—but something definitely needs to change.
A Great Story Impatiently Told
If we were to commit the cardinal sin of badly summarizing Zenless Zone Zero’s entire story, it would probably go something like this: "Twins work as legendary—but illegal—dungeon guides while moonlighting as video store clerks; naturally gets involved in every major disaster while chasing their own goals."
Not exactly illuminating, right? The funny thing is—even if you did try to explain the plot with more effort, you’d probably land somewhere similar. Long story short, the overarching narrative is simple enough that it can be boiled down to a single compound sentence.
But does that simplicity hurt the game?
Not really. In fact, it might be one of the story’s greatest strengths. With a straightforward central plot, the writers are free to focus on the now—crafting moment-to-moment writing that hooks you into the present rather than relying on slow-burn reveals or delayed payoffs; those are reserved for arc climaxes. This setup also gives a lot of room for the side stories to shine, and in many cases, they do—ranging from emotional gut-punches to intriguing (and sometimes funny) mysteries rarely felt as endearingly in the gacha space.
That said, it’s not all handled gracefully—as the section header might’ve warned.
If there’s one issue that plagues nearly every story arc, it’s pacing. More specifically, its rushed pacing. The first arc’s rising action is a perfect example: Miyabi’s internal conflicts were barely explored, turning what could’ve been a powerful character arc into a half-baked subplot. Give that section even just a little more room to breathe, and we could’ve had a much richer understanding of her motivations and struggles.
And yes, this problem extends to side stories as well. Only a few—like Trigger’s—benefited from enough breathing room to tell a satisfying, well-paced narrative. The rest feel like they were forced to sprint through their stories before they could land.
It’s hard not to feel like the writing team is being constrained by the scale of each patch or update. They clearly know what kind of emotional curves and narrative structures they want to hit, but the volume of what they can actually deliver each time just isn’t enough. The intent is there, but the execution often feels clipped.
Still, the foundation is solid. The writers don’t even forget past characters as the plot progresses, often incorporating them sporadically as the story develops. If the developers can just give the narrative a little more space in future updates, Zenless Zone Zero could deliver something genuinely special—not just in gameplay, but in storytelling too.
Is Zenless Zone Zero Worth It?
Most Definitely Yes, Especially if You’re New to Action RPGs
Despite my complaints about the story, Zenless Zone Zero was never really about the narrative to begin with. It’s an action-first game set in a jukebox world—where combat plays out to the rhythm of stylish, high-energy tracks. And in that space, only a few of its direct peers even come close—though some can easily outmatch it in certain aspects.
And hey—it’s free. Sure, it comes with the usual eyebrow-raising gacha mechanics: the infamous 50/50 pity system, and a unique weapon banner that doesn’t even guarantee you the rate-up weapon. But considering what you’re getting in return—fluid gameplay, striking visuals, and top-tier production values—it’s honestly not a bad tradeoff.
| Platforms | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HoYoverse App |
Playstation |
Xbox |
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| Epic |
Google Play |
App Store |
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| Free-to-play | |||||
Game8 Reviews
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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 | Teen |
| Official Website | Zenless Zone Zero Official Website |
