Zenless Zone Zero Hands-On Preview – Kicking Off The Hype in Style 

xGenshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail studio HoYoverse is about to blow the mobile market again with their next release – Zenless Zone Zero, scheduled to arrive on July 4th, 2024. As we inch closer to the release date, we were fortunate to be invited by HoYoverse to attend a Media Preview Event for Zenless Zone Zero, allowing us to taste more of their exciting new hack-and-slash title.

During the preview event, we were given around 5 hours of playtime throughout two sessions with a level 60 account with all the announced characters, Bangboos, and W-Engines unlocked, with an assortment of S-rank and A-rank equipment already leveled and ready to be equipped on any characters. Without further ado, here is what you could expect as Zenless Zone Zero goes live, including what the end game has to offer.

Note that the hands-on demo does not represent the final version of the game. While the majority of the demo build will be the same as the official release version, some key story chapters, NPC dialogues, and interactions were altered to remove potential spoilers.

Jam to Melody of Clashes 

If you have been following the game, you may have already seen and know how combat plays out – it is not much different from what initial gameplay was revealed through various events and closed beta tests, and we did get a taste of it before at HoYo FEST 2023, Tokyo Game Show 2023, as well as during the Equalizing Test.

For those who have kept yourself spoiler-free until now but want to learn more about the game before diving into the action during launch, here you have it. This is a character action game, in a similar vein to Devil May Cry and Bayonetta – it’s all about unleashing chains of combo attacks and abilities of your characters as you watch them dash, flip, and perform all sorts of acrobatic maneuvers with your screen bombarded with blinding particle effects.

For those who already familiarized themselves with HoYoverse’s past title, especially Honkai Impact 3rd – you know what expectations to have, the studio’s ability to translate the vibes of a good character action game into mobile is something to be praised for. This is especially true when mobile devices’ touchscreen controls cannot house the complicated buttons the genre is known for, so simpler controls are called for.

Zenless Zone Zero delivers this amazingly, excelling at making you feel like you are performing complex actions despite simpler controls. Hits are satisfying with impactful feedback and booming sound effects, while animation transitions smoothly as characters dance in and out. For the controls, all characters share the same move set – a basic attack string, a special attack, and an ultimate – while it might seem simple, each characters are designed to stand out from one another with their unique abilities and some of them may be more complex to learn and play well.

Of course, this is not a game where you can just spam a button and hope for victory because a great defense goes a long way on keeping your offense going. Moving from the mundane dodge system of Genshin Impact, we go back to Honkai Impact 3rd‘s blood-pumping time-slow inducing evasions for Zenless Zone Zero. Timing your evades just as the enemy’s strikes are about to hit you, a Perfect Dodge will be initiated, placing the entire game into a slow-mo “Witch Time” effect for counter opportunities.

If that isn’t satisfyingly fun enough, pressing a specific button as the enemy flashes in yellow, you can execute a Dodge Counter, which swaps your character out to the next one to perform a defensive move – whether a unique evasion or a sweet awesome parry that spark the screen with a gratifying sword clashing sound.

Unlike Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, the teams in Zenless Zone Zero is composed of up to 3 Agents instead of 4 – unless you count the adorable Bangboo as the fourth member. Agents can be swapped around anytime during battle, but you cannot manually choose who to call out like Genshin Impact – rather, they will be switched out in the order that you set, cycle from one to two to three, then back to one. There are certain conditions, specifically in the case of Chain Attack where you can activate a short sequence of QTEs when you strike a foe that is Stunned or Dazed with a Heavy Attack – you can bypass the order sequence and choose which specific Agent to switch to. 

While what was mentioned differs from other HoYoverse games, Zenless Zone Zero shares the same emphasis on elemental strengths and weaknesses like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. As you style on your enemies, you can accumulate enough elemental damage on them and trigger an effect that places status ailments on them based on the element inflicted. Agents are also divided into different roles that dictate their playstyle and their Faction actually matters because having specific members in your team will provide certain Additional Abilities.

Zhu Yuan, Leader of Public Security’s Criminal Investigation Team

While we managed to give all the playable characters a try for a session or two, the one Agent that stood out in particular to us the most was Zhu Yuan – one of the latest characters revealed. She specializes in good old stylish gun fu, mixing martial arts, bullets, and Ether buckshot. What makes her so cool is that she is the only few available characters that possess two different elements – she can deal both Physical and Ether damage. 

She has 2 modes – Assault Mode and Suppressive Mode. In Assault Mode, you deal a combo of up to 5 basic attacks, and finishing up the full combo will yield you an Enhanced Shotshell. This is where the Suppressive Mode comes in, by holding the basic attack, you’ll deal Physical damage with your gun but if you have an Enhanced Shotshell, it will consume one charge and deal massive Ether damage. You can have up to 9 Enhanced Shotshells, and they are not limited to only being obtainable from basic attack combo, but also through Quick Assist, Assist Follow-Up, EX Special Attack, Chained Attack, and Ultimate. From what we’ve tried of her, it seems her playstyle is to build up as many Enhanced Shotshells and unleash them through Suppressive Mode, as it’s her highest dealing damage move outside of her Ultimate.

For players who like the idea of Billy Kid’s gun-blazing playstyle but feel his gameplay of “only shooting” a bit lackluster and boring, you’ll love Zhu Yuan’s more close and personal gun fu fighting style – going in for melee attacks while distancing herself to safety through most of her abilities. 

End Game, Memory and Abyss Return 

Combat aside, one aspect of the game we decided to dive deeper into is the end game content – is it disappointingly closer to Genshin Impact or is it loaded with a treasure trove of exciting modes? If you are an active player of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, you will feel right at home because the end game of Zenless Zone Zero, whether you like it or not – follows the typical HoYoverse pattern closely. Yes, that includes the dreaded Relic/Artifact grind, in the form of Drive Disc.

All the end game content is placed in the Scott Outpost, and there are four available modes to access – Hollow Zero, Notorious Hunt, Routine Cleanup, and Shiyu Defense. These modes can also be accessed via the menu.

Hollow Zero

Hollow Zero is a mode that is very similar to Honkai: Star Rail‘s Simulated Universe, specifically the Swam Disaster of Gold and Gears. However, instead of moving tile to tile, you move from one TV to another as they act as stages. Very much like the different Simulated Universe Worlds in Honkai: Star Rail, each Zone, as they call it here, has different bosses and encounters – meaning different elemental weaknesses and resistances to consider as well as different rewards. There are also multiple difficulties for each Zone, from Normal to Hard, High-Risk, and Disaster – depending on the difficulty you choose, you’ll obtain a different number of Investigation Points for the weekly reward.

It’s also stated that every two weeks, you’ll be given a limited-time bounty commission that grants item rewards. Bounty commissions are split into special commissions and common commissions that can be completed 3-4 times per week. However, special commissions cannot be refreshed but will unlock greater rewards while common commissions can be refreshed and are split into S, A, and B ranks.

For each Hollow Zero run, you select one Agent who will take on the role of the leader, and up to 5 others as squad members, for a total of 6 Agents. You will start as the leader but as your run goes on you can recruit the Agents you put as squad members, up to a maximum of the usual 3 Agents per team of course. 

Furthermore, throughout your run, you will obtain “Resonia” or “Resonium”, which are cards that provide various buffs. Some are straightforward, such as increasing the Agents’ CRIT Rate or Chain Attack damage, while some have conditions tied to them such as gaining buff when an enemy is inflicted with a debuff. They act similar to Blessings in Honkai: Star Rail, where if you obtain 4 or 8 of the same Resonia type you will get one Advanced Resonium, granting improved buff effects. There are various types of Resonium indicated by its icon, each focusing on different combat aspects: Critical, Dodge, General, Energy, Synergy, and elements.

As mentioned, you go from TV to TV, and these TVs represent the encounters where you would need to make a choice – either you choose the one where you face enemies, to obtain more Resonium or visit a store to use the currency collected so far to buy more Resonium or upgrade them. There are also certain encounters with specific requirements to enter, such as a pre-requisite to clear the previous boss with an S rank first. 

If you’re familiar with the Swarm Disaster, you will know that the more tiles you explore, the harder the run gets. It’s similar to Hollow Zero, but with a twist and that is that as you explore more TVs, you will fill up a gauge called “Pressure”. Once filled, you will obtain a random “Corruption” – a debuff for the run. These debuffs vary – they can bolster enemy strength such as bosses being able to unleash a critical hit, or all squad members may lose a chunk of HP when a condition is met, or dodges having a longer cooldown. They can be removed thankfully, but if you’re lucky with your run that is. 

One thing we liked about exploring Hollow Zero is that you can use WASD to navigate around if you’re using a mouse and keyboard. We just wish you could make choices on the run using the keyboard similar to how you can use 1-4 to make dialog choices in Honkai: Star Rail. Navigating and waiting through the animations of the TV can take some time which is where the 2x speed comes in handy but we feel it’s still a bit slow, perhaps a 3x would be nicer, or even an option to completely skip the animations. All your Hollow Zero runs are also tracked so you can see time spent, Resoniums, squad used, total events, battles, and more in past runs so you can go back and share your previous runs with your friends in case you forgot to take screenshots.

Notorious Hunt 

Notorious Hunt is your typical Weekly Bosses, where you will be obtaining important materials to upgrade Agent advanced core skills, Investigation Merits association supplies currency to purchase valuable items, and W-Engine Chip to craft W-Engines at the gadget shop. Interestingly, different from the other HoYoverse games, you can choose one Resonium out of three before starting your fight against the boss. 

In the build we played on, there were 3 available weekly bosses – Newborn Dead End Butcher, Unknown Corruption Complex, and Twin Marionettes.

Newborn Dead End Butcher is your standard axe-wielding brute with two phases. It isn’t too scary at the start, but when its second phase comes, it will grow two more arms in its back like he’s Overwatch‘s Ramattra. In this phase, his moves become deadlier and start utilizing more combo attacks, and incentivizes you to play defensively.

Meanwhile, the Unknown Corruption Complex is a giant scorpion-like construction robot with a chainsaw as its right hand and an oversized screwdriver as its left arm alongside a powerful tail that it uses as a drill and whip to slam around and toss rocks. This boss would use its entire body as a weapon and its second phase will empower its body with energy, allowing its tail to blast out lasers. What I like about this boss is that it would release its attack depending on your position, since it has a full 360° control over its body.

Lastly, we have the Twin Marionettes, a pair in one that supports each other and arguably the most interesting boss out of the 3. This is a boss that will catch you off guard if you are not paying attention. This particular boss has a mechanic quite similar to the Coral Defenders in Genshin Impact, where you have to slay both entities one after another in quick succession or else they would revive each other. 

Routine Cleanup 

HoYoverse fans, you see it coming – the nightmare returns because this is the mode where you farm the Artifact/Relic equivalent in Zenless Zone Zero called Drive Discs. There are 6 total Routine Cleanups in this build, each offering 2 different sets of equipment so there’s a total of 12 sets of Drive Discs for you to farm and min-max your characters.

For each Routine Cleanup, you fight 2 bosses simultaneously; as you’d expect, each Routine Cleanup also grants different buffed elements and special effects. 

Shiyu Defense

Last but not least, Shiyu Defense – essentially Zenless’ version of the Spiral Abyss from Genshin Impact or the Memory of Chaos, if you are a Trailblazer coming from Honkai: Star Rail. Like its equivalent, Shiyu Defense offers different effects at each stage, whether it be increased Agent elemental anomaly buildup rate, increased elemental damage, or so on, but also provides the toughest challenges to test players’ skills or their Drive Discs luck.

The objective of each stage is to defend specific areas in the Hollows against the encroachment of Etheric matter and to suppress enemies that are attracted to the energy. You are given about 10 minutes to defeat all enemies. Clearing them while meeting certain criteria such as below a given time, will grant you better rewards. 

The permanent one is called the Stable Node, while the limited-time one that resets after a few weeks is called the Critical Node. Like the other HoYoverse titles, you would have to complete the permanent ones before unlocking the Critical Node. Basically, it’s Spiral Abyss all over again.

Hype in Zone Zero 

Ever since we had our first taste of Zenless Zone Zero at last year’s HoYo FEST, we were already extremely excited about the title – and this hands-on event session cemented that the hype will be worthwhile.

HoYoverse has always been great at delivering high-octane action games to mobile devices, and Zenless Zone Zero once again proved that. Like Honkai Impact 3rd, Zenless Zone Zero took steps into fast-paced action centered around combos with a cast of attractive characters that will no doubt get HoYoverse fans excited to dive into it.

Drive Discs and Shiyu Defense may be the more controversial returning features from other games but that depends on how you feel about their equivalent in other HoYoverse titles. The simple yet satisfying combat gameplay of Zenless Zone Zero is seriously a highlight, allowing you to feel like a total badass without overly precise combo timing. Its simpler approach to character action, yet able to deliver the satisfaction the best in the genre produces is what makes Zenless Zone Zero one promising title to look forward to.

As mentioned, Zenless Zone Zero launches on 4th July 2024 on PC, iOS, Android, and PlayStation 5.

We also got the opportunity to interview Zhenyu Li, the producer of Zenless Zone Zero, and you can read the full interview here.

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