Zenless Zone Zero

Overview

The game is set in New Eridu, one of the few remaining bastions of human civilization, after mysterious creatures collectively known as The Ethereal created giant Hollows that corrupted or destroyed humans across the globe who were trapped inside them. With the help of a few skilled individuals, humanity learned to extract special crystals from the ether that could be used as a new power source, and used them to power to the city of New Eridu. However, only special humans and robots have the ability to withstand Ethereal Corruption long enough to venture into the Hollows to complete a job without falling to the monsters inside, or transforming into one themselves.

The player takes control of a reliable "Proxy" named Phaethon who guides various Agents through the Hollows. In truth, Phaethon is actually a duo of a girl named Belle and her brother Wise. At the start of the game, the player picks one of the two to act as the main Proxy, and whoever isn't picked will remain as their assistant in NPC form. During a quick job guiding the Cunning Hares to safety, a mysterious hacker holds the Cunning Hares hostage by cutting off their communications within the Hollow. With time running out, Phaethon is forced to give up their account to outwit the hacker, and then use the item that the Cunning Hares were transporting to lead them to safety.

From then on, Phaethon is forced to use a rookie Proxy account (named by the player at the start) to do their work. However, they now have the services of a powerful AI called Fairy, taking up residence in their computer.

The two siblings operate a video store in New Eridu called "Random Play," which doubles as their secret base for Proxy work. When not doing Proxy, they stock and rent out videotapes to any interested customers in the area.

Characters

Similar to other Hoyoverse games, players take on combat using Agents that they have collected, either through story progression or gacha. While playing through the combat tutorial level, players are automatically given three agents from the Cunning Hares faction: Anby, Nicole, and Billy. At least three more can be acquired for free later on: Ben, Corin, and Soukaku.

Gameplay

In ZZZ players usually spend their time in one of three modes:

Combat

Forming a team of up to 3 Agents, players can control one Agent at a time to fight enemies and achieve their objectives. They can also switch out one of their selected Agents as needed.

Agents attack with one of five elemental traits (see table below). When an agent deals attribute damage, they inflict a certain amount of Anomaly Buildup, which triggers the elemental Anomaly on that enemy when it is filled. Combining two different elemental Anomalies will Trigger a Disorder effect, dealing even greater damage and inflicting Daze on the enemy for a limited time.

Wind element was available in the beta version of the game but was later removed without explanation.

Exploration

Players take control of their Proxy's Bangboo, Eous, and traverse a set of adjacent TVs that function as the "map" for their missions. A mix of combat (see above) and puzzle-solving is necessary to earn the S Grade on each stage.

New Eridu

Players can explore areas of the city of New Eridu that they have unlocked, visit shops to buy equipment or buffs, or talk to NPCs to raise their relationship level with them. The overworld operates on a morning-noon-evening-night time cycle, affecting the sidequests that can be done or the people that can be talked to outside of combat stages. From visiting the shops on Sixth Street to the HIA offices to the outskirts of Hollow Zero, players can visit various places in the hub world that is New Eridu to acquire materials, jump into different combat modes, or advance the story.