Mary has played the beta of Zenless Zone Zero and has many question marks over her head. Who is this game for – and who isn’t?
I’ve probably been sitting here for over an hour, staring at a blank text document and happily deleting every written introduction a few seconds after I’ve typed it down. Rarely have I found it so difficult to write about a game
This is not because there is too little information. On the contrary – I was able to play the beta of Zenless Zone Zero for days and weeks But I still wonder who this game is made for
But let’s start at the beginning
Postapocalypse meets Genshin Impact
Zenless Zone Zero is the new single-player action game from Genshin Impact makers HoYoverse. So behind the game is a company that doesn’t have to turn over every penny twice. You can already guess how high the production level is from the smooth animations in the trailer:
The game world looks absolutely fantastic. The story is told in a mix of cutscenes, dialog and comics, which I also think is fantastic.
The small shopping street of New Eridu, where I run a video rental shop and a movie theater together with my sibling, feels homely and is my absolute highlight so far. Even if our movie rental/cinema in the cyberpunk-like setting looks more than funny
Behind our totally unremarkable movie theater facade, I go about our actual work with my brother or sister: We are proxies and illegally guide people through dimensions.
Because you have to know: The vast majority of humanity has been wiped out by supernatural disasters called Hollows. These are forces that appear out of nowhere and create chaotic dimensions in which monsters wreak havoc.
However, valuable resources can be found within these Hollows, so the reigning government commercialized the catastrophe and created monopolies. It goes without saying that the last remaining humans don’t like this. And so a black market develops, in which I participate as a proxy
The story wouldn’t sound so unexciting to my ears if it were told properly. Just summarizing it, I had to check several wikis and the official homepage of the developers to make sure I had summarized everything correctly. Because I only get a fraction of it explained in the game
Instead, I’m bombarded with in-game technical terms like Proxy
, Hollow
, Bangboo
and co. and just hope that someone will explain it to me while I’m playing. But in the five hours I’ve played so far, it’s looked really poor.
This will be good, but …
I feel the same way about Zenless Zone Zero’s action combat system. It looks super fun at first glance Just like in Genshin Impact, I have a team of several characters that I take turns playing in battle. They all have different weapons and two abilities: a special attack and an ultimate ability
Instead of constantly dodging my opponents’ attacks, with the right timing I can simply switch characters and launch a counterattack. Sometimes I can even trigger a combo and jump back and forth between several characters. So there is plenty of action
As with the story, I quickly become disillusioned after the initial euphoria. I soon realize that I’m effectively just bluntly hammering on my left mouse button and don’t have to memorize enemy attacks or develop strategies. No fight is really difficult.
This should (according to various YouTubers) be different in the endgame. But honestly, do I want to torture myself through 10 hours of boring carnage before the game proves to me that there is another way?
Mini world with mini-games
The second major gameplay component is a kind of TV mini-game in which I have to jump from screen to screen, push barrels onto buttons or get involved in fights
Because: Zenless Zone Zero does not have an open world or even a partially open world. Instead, the battles in the Hollows mostly take place in arena-like mini-areas, while my life takes place outside the disasters around my store.
Everything in between happens in the TV world, which resembles a kind of puzzle mini-game. Now and again the puzzles are quite creative, but in the long run the whole thing feels more like a job creation exercise. That’s a shame because, as I mentioned above, I find the setting and the story quite exciting.
One step forward, two steps back
Around the TV world, the Hollows and my life on the shopping street, there are of course a number of resource, currency and equipment systems. The gacha, the in-game character lottery with its associated in-game store, is also a must. I draw lots and randomly receive characters and equipment of varying rarity levels.
I already know this from Genshin Impact and Honkai Starrail and I usually don’t mind this system. The Free2Play game has to earn money somehow. Unlike the publisher’s other two games, however, Zenless Zone Zero uses an old mechanic that was cut in its predecessors
You need energy for everything you do. And this is replenished either over time or with your wallet. Previously, only individual Engame elements worked with this energy system. For example, if you wanted to collect particularly good equipment in Genshin Impact.
Why they are now extending this system to the main and side quests is beyond me. On the contrary: I even think it’s a shame that I can’t play through the story from start to finish in one go, but am forced to either wait or put money on the table.
For whom is Zenless Zone Zero suitable – and for whom not?
I’m really at a loss as to what to make of this beta. On the one hand, I have a fantastic presentation, an exciting setting and a story with so much to tell. And on the other hand, I have a very simple combat system, long dry spells until the exciting content and resources that feel like they want to ask me to pay at every turn.
That’s what makes it so hard for me, because I want to like Zenless Zone Zero. In my eyes, there needs to be at least one more explanatory prologue between release and beta and a lot of tweaking of the resources and the enemy design or combat system.
Because at the moment it’s probably only suitable for people who want half an hour of shallow entertainment every evening or have taken the characters so much to their hearts that they can overlook all the bugs. But if you’ve been waiting for a single-player Genshin Impact or a Honkai Starrail with real-time battles, you won’t be happy here.
