Zenless Zone Zero Review

Zenless Zone Zero Overview

Zenless Zone Zero turns a ruined world into a sharp urban action RPG, where stylish trios crack monsters inside the Hollows while New Eridu keeps the lights on outside. miHoYo swaps medieval grandeur for streetwear, neon storefronts, hackers, and supernatural pocket dimensions. Humanity may be hanging by a thread, but the jackets remain immaculate.

You play as Belle or Wise, a brother and sister who work as Proxies. Their specialty is guiding Agents through the Hollows, dangerous labyrinths that devastated civilization but still contain valuable resources. That setup gives commissions a little more bite than a basic monster hunt: New Eridu survives partly because people keep walking into the disaster zone.

Released on July 4, 2024 for Windows, iOS, Android, and PlayStation 5, with Xbox Series X/S following on June 6, 2025, this free-to-play adventure is built for players who want anime characters, real-time combat, and an expanding roster without a huge exploration sandbox attached. Good shoes, dangerous dimensions, questionable employment decisions. Lovely.

Zenless Zone Zero Gameplay and Core Loop

The main attraction is fast, polished third-person combat, wrapped in compact commissions, light puzzles, and character-driven downtime. A typical 20-minute slice sends your chosen trio into a Hollow, drops them into glitzy real-time fights, and has your Proxy handle simple navigation puzzles between encounters. Back in New Eridu, social side activities and story scenes give the cast room to breathe before the next job arrives.

The Hollows know how to stage a fight

Combat is the center of gravity, and the presentation makes sure you know it. Streetwear-clad Agents tear through supernatural enemies while crisp animation sells every hit. Critics have consistently praised the gameplay, animation, soundtrack, and characters, which explains why even a straightforward commission can feel like a tiny action episode made specifically to show off your squad.

The trio format also gives the gacha roster a practical purpose. You are collecting distinct Agents to bring into battle, rather than gathering portraits that spend eternity warming a menu. The setting helps, too. These are lovable rogues chasing commissions and answers in a city with an uneasy dependence on the very Hollows threatening it.

Puzzles provide the comma, not the sentence

Traversal and puzzle solving are intentionally lighter than the fighting. Early versions leaned harder on the TV Mode, a puzzle-based system used to represent movement through the Hollows, but negative reception led to that mode being largely reduced late in 2024. Players hoping for deep exploration may still find the spaces and navigation less substantial than the combat.

That restraint can also be a strength. The puzzles break up the punching without hijacking the whole evening, and the social interludes keep New Eridu from becoming a fancy queue for battles. When another commission lands, the game gets you back to its best trick quickly: three stylish troublemakers turning a monster problem into a fireworks display.

Is Zenless Zone Zero Pay-to-Win?

Zenless Zone Zero is not competitive pay-to-win, but its gacha can sell meaningful roster access and allows whales to spend without a practical ceiling. This is a single-player action RPG rather than a competitive ladder, so paying does not buy victory over another person. It can, however, buy more chances at the Agents and resources tied to its collection and progression systems.

The pressure points are familiar: premium currency, time-limited opportunities, and a free-to-grind path that exchanges money for patience. That can produce a soft paywall around getting every character you want, particularly if limited availability turns a favorite Agent into an urgent pull. The game does not need to beat you in player-versus-player competition to make a missed character sting.

Free players still have a viable route through the action and story. The smart approach is to treat the roster as a collection of favorites, not a checklist demanding completion. Save currency, pick your targets, and give every flashing banner the suspicion normally reserved for a vending machine in a monster dimension. Your wallet survives, and the combat remains the point.

Zenless Zone Zero Progression and Long-Term Play

The lasting hook is building a broader Agent roster while following commissions, relationships, and the mysteries surrounding New Eridu. Over time, the focus shifts from meeting this crew to choosing which characters deserve your saved resources and future pulls. The gacha turns team building into the long game, while the story keeps pointing back toward the Hollows and the city built beside them.

This structure can become grindy or time-gated if you chase every available reward. Time-limited content encourages regular returns, and free progression naturally asks for more patience than paid acceleration. Players who dislike scheduled incentives or incomplete collections will feel that friction sooner than those happy to focus on a few Agents.

The encouraging part is that miHoYo has already shown a willingness to revise weaker systems. After TV Mode was cut back, the version 2.0 update in July 2025 improved the hub design and user interface. That makes the long-term game feel less frozen in its launch shape. New Eridu keeps renovating, even if the monsters have not received the eviction notice.

Is Zenless Zone Zero Worth Playing?

Zenless Zone Zero is worth playing for its stylish combat, strong animation, memorable cast, and unusually cool urban-fantasy setting. Its lighter exploration and gacha pressure keep it from landing a clean knockout, but neither problem erases the sheer appeal of sending a fashionable trio into a Hollow and watching the screen crackle.

Anime-action fans and roster tinkerers should jump in, while completionists who hate limited pulls or explorers seeking a vast world should skip the chase.

It costs nothing to take the first commission, meet New Eridu’s rogues, and decide whether one more battle sounds irresistible. Chances are, the soundtrack will already be making the argument for you.