Zenless Zone Zero fixed most of its pressing issues in the latest test

HoYoverse’s next title is shaping up nicely

HoYoverse

With HoYoverse dominating the monthly revenue charts for gacha games its main competitors can only look on in awe as the studio is getting ready to release a third prospective juggernaut – Zenless Zone Zero, an action-oriented urban fantasy RPG.

Merging the quick-paced combat of Honkai Impact 3rd with all the presentation and storytelling lessons it learned from Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, HoYoverse is hoping to catch lightning in a bottle for a third time, further expanding its genre dominance.

Playing the second closed beta test of the game last year, I couldn’t help but notice that Zenless Zone Zero incorporated elements from Honkai: Star Rail events, making it seem like there was a good deal of cross-pollination going on between the development teams. This made some of the backward design decisions all the more baffling, as it seemed like the team for Zenless Zone Zero didn’t take full advantage of all the lessons learned from Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.

Fortunately, it looks like most of those pressing issues have been ironed out between then and now, as the third closed beta test of the game is currently showing. For many players, the most important item on the agenda was energy management – in CBT2, users needed to spend an in-game resource to play story missions. That’s a typical element from older gacha games like Fate: Grand Order and Honkai Impact 3rd, but the audience HoYoverse has grown for itself isn’t used to that at all – neither Genshin Impact nor Honkai: Star Rail have such limitations.

In CBT3, this requirement is gone in Zenless Zone Zero as well – players can start missions without having to tap into their energy, which thus can be fully used for farming materials and gear as is the case with the two most recent HoYoverse games.

Meet Belle, one half of the sibling protagonists. / HoYoverse

Another welcome change was made to the banners, which work in the same way as in Genshin and Star Rail, aside from a new banner type featuring only Bangboos. In CBT2, these little robots were found all over the character and weapon banners, drowning out the pulls players wanted, so they now have their own banner with a specific currency that can be earned in-game. A very good change to make the banners more player-friendly.

Speaking of which: Just like in Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero offers players a one-time 5-Star selector when they’ve pulled 300 times from the standard banner. You love to see it.

Some minor annoyances with the way daily quests and the battle pass were handled in CBT2 have been addressed as well: in CBT3, dailies have been rolled into the location from where you start your missions and farming runs, so you’re wasting less time running around and don’t even need to manually claim your rewards anymore. The battle pass, meanwhile, is now accessible from the main menu.

Belle and Wise live in Sixth Street in New Eridu, a stylish hub area you can freely explore. / HoYoverse

Zenless Zone Zero’s “TV gameplay” proved relatively divisive in CBT2. Since it’s a core part of the experience, HoYoverse couldn’t exactly remove it. However, an option to speed through the animations of these exploration phases has been added to allow players to spend less time on these screens. There is more of a focus on Combat and Rally Commissions as well – these missions focus purely on combat and skip any “TV gameplay” entirely.

Hollow Zero – the game’s roguelike endgame mode – as well as all the Main and Exploration Commissions still use the system with the two latter mission types, including puzzles. Even though I didn’t have a problem with the “TV gameplay” in the first place, the speed-up function has been quite welcome and solved my main issue: dialog taking too long to play out and the player being stuck while waiting for animations to finish.

With optional co-op for weekly bosses, there is another way for people to play with their friends aside from the arcade’s mini-games, but at its core Zenless Zone Zero is still a solo experience.

A few gripes remain. The soundtrack is once again top-notch, as we’ve come to expect from the music company that makes games on the side, but it could use a little more variety. It’s similar for the combat stages, which do look different from time to time, but hardly get any more interesting – there are a few Dennies to pick up here and there, some traps to keep in mind, and the rare box of healing or energy, but nothing else.

The Cunning Hares: Anby, Nicole, Billy, and Nekomata. / HoYoverse

When it comes to presentation, there’s nothing that could compete with HoYoverse – Zenless Zone Zero looks and sounds stunning. Its animations in and outside of battle reinforce the bouncy atmosphere created by the soundtrack as well as the comedic elements in the dialog, which definitely lean toward the sillier side of things most of the time. Just like Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero finds a balance between those moments and more serious scenes. Overall, this fits the slice-of-life focused start of the story much better than any attempt at replicating Genshin Impact’s epic and grandiose dialog could.

Playing the game, your head and feet eventually start moving with the soundtrack while your hands are busy with the mechanically intense and quite satisfying combat – which saw some improvements in CBT3 as well, especially when it comes to teaching players the basics.

Will Zenless Zone Zero capture the same magic as its two older siblings? Hard to say, since the measuring stick for HoYoverse’s own games has been placed almost unfairly high up – what’s certain is that it has the same impeccable production quality behind it and that it’s enjoyable to play. Good signs, I'd say.