Zenless Zone Zero

1. Summary

Steam players like Zenless Zone Zero a lot, and mostly for the same reasons. Combat leads: a fast parry-and-swap system that is easy to pick up and deep at the top end, discussed in 48% of longer reviews and praised far more often than criticized. Reviewers also rave about the characters, the animation and the overall style, which they describe as better than the game needed to be. Several say the story made them cry, and people listen to the soundtrack outside the game. A recurring line is that this is the gacha game for people who dislike gacha games, because the free currency feels generous and the dailies take a few minutes.

The gacha itself is the most-mentioned topic in negative reviews: HoYoverse's 50/50 character banners, 75/25 weapon banners, limited characters who rarely rerun and drive-disc RNG. The Steam release drew its own complaints in its first weeks. Pressing Play still opens HoYoverse's launcher, account linking and switching misbehaved, and features from the standalone launcher were missing. Other frustrations are performance under the new DX12 mode and in the new Roscaelifer region, a wall of menus, tutorials and currencies for newcomers, and long stretches of dialogue between fights. Long-time players disagree about the game's direction (Season 2's story, newer character designs, endgame HP inflation), and some say Season 3 put it back on track. Fan service is everywhere in the reviews, mostly as approving jokes, though a smaller group finds it a turn-off.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Fast, satisfying parry-and-swap combatHigh

Combat comes up in 48% of longer reviews, more than any other topic. Players love the switch-to-parry "clang", perfect dodges, chain attacks during stuns and the way each agent plays differently. One reviewer put it as "The combat feels like i've been injected with 27 doses of liquid dopamine." Easy to learn and hard to master is a common description: story missions are forgiving, while endgame modes reward rotations, animation canceling and team synergy. One veteran sums it up as "It's a difficult game to optimize." Devil May Cry comes up as a comparison in a few dozen reviews, Metal Gear Rising and Persona in a handful.

A smaller group disagrees. 4% of longer reviews call the combat button-mashing, shallow or too easy; one advises "If you play games like God Hand, DMC, Hi-fi, or Bayo DON'T play ZZZ". Others, including fans, say story difficulty is so low that the depth only shows up in the endgame.

Characters, animation and styleHigh

Characters come up in 46% of longer reviews and animation or art direction in 23%. Reviewers single out expressive, exaggerated animation (unique walk cycles, idle poses, squash-and-stretch cutscenes), comic-panel storytelling, distinct factions and memorable personalities. The fully voiced protagonists count as characters in their own right instead of silent self-inserts. "Also I don't know how much hoyo is paying their animators, but it is not enough." is a common kind of reaction, and one 3D animator writes that the game has taught them a lot about the craft. Many short reviews are little more than a favorite character's name (Miyabi, Jane Doe, Ellen, Nicole, Billy, Lycaon and many more).

A story and world that win people overHigh

Players describe New Eridu's urban, post-apocalyptic setting, the episodic chapters and the agent side stories as funny and occasionally devastating. The story comes up in 41% of longer reviews, mostly warmly, and "I can't believe a damn gacha made me cry" comes from someone who expected nothing from the plot. Several long-time players name Season 1 as their favorite stretch. The criticism is about pacing and dialogue length (see the frustrations below) and about Season 2, which splits players (see the split section).

Generous for a gacha, and light on daily choresMedium

15% of longer reviews call the game generous or free-to-play friendly, and a smaller group praises how little daily time it asks. Players cite a steady supply of pulls per patch, free S-rank agents at anniversaries, story missions that lend fully built trial characters, and dailies that take a few minutes; one wrote "IT RESPECTS THE PLAYER'S FREE TIME!!!". Dozens of reviewers say this is the only gacha they still play, or their first. Some of the same reviews still warn readers to plan pulls carefully and to avoid spending if gambling is a weakness.

Music and sound designMedium

The soundtrack, the character songs and the punchy combat sound effects get praise in 13% of longer reviews, often with a tip to watch the character music videos on YouTube. "Is this game really made by a Game Dev company or a Music Company in disguise?" sums up the tone. A handful of dissenters find the audio mixing flat or the soundtrack forgettable.

Works on Linux and Steam DeckLow

Linux players welcome an official route that no longer needs third-party launchers, and Deck owners report playable performance at low settings; 4% of longer reviews mention Linux, Proton or the Steam Deck. Some updates temporarily broke Linux play, though, some users needed a specific Proton build or a launch option to skip the launcher, and hub areas run slowly on the Deck.

Where players are split

The fan serviceHigh

Fan-service terms (jiggle physics, "gooner", waifus, body jokes) appear in 18% of all reviews, mostly in one-line jokes. For many reviewers the exaggerated physics and revealing designs are part of the appeal; "If you do not like any sort of fanservice, this game is not for you." is how one fan put it, and others insist there is a real game under the reputation. A minority pushes back. Some find newer outfits tasteless or repetitive, and 4% of longer reviews raise concerns about childlike characters being sexualized, a point that shows up disproportionately in negative reviews. Even a fan who rates the game highly adds the condition that your parents shouldn't see you play it.

Endgame difficulty, power creep and HP inflationMedium

The endgame modes (Shiyu Defense, Deadly Assault) and the meta come up in 13% of longer reviews, with opinions on both sides. Fans say skill matters, old characters get buffed, A-ranks can still clear content, and power creep is gentler than in other HoYoverse games. Critics describe rising boss HP, buffs tailored to whoever is on the current banner, and mechanics like Miasma that favor new agents; one veteran noted that "HP in endgame modes has quadrupled in a year". Players who were already playing before the Steam release raise the endgame far more often than newcomers do.

Season 2, Season 3 and the game's changing identityMedium

Season 2 comes up in 8% of longer reviews, mostly critically: its China-inspired Waifei arc, its pacing and its villain are called the low point ("Season 2: waste of time and diskspace" is one blunt verdict). Season 3 and the Roscaelifer region get a warmer reception, with one fan writing that "Season 3 eclipses Season 2 in a single chapter". Long-time players also argue about identity. In critics' eyes the early urban, retro-tech look, the proxy-behind-the-screen premise and TV mode gave way to more combat, open zones and more interchangeable revealing outfits. "Pants seem to have been discontinued." is one long-time player's summary. Others defend the newer designs or simply say they do not mind.

The removal of TV modeLow

The original grid-of-TV-screens exploration mode still divides players. Some are glad it is gone ("One of the absolute best changes they've implemented is the removal of the TV mode"), while others miss it as the most distinctive part of the game's identity and dislike the arena corridors that replaced it.

What frustrates players

The gacha: 50/50 banners, weapon odds and missing rerunsHigh

The word "gacha" appears in 38% of longer reviews, usually as a caveat, and in 36% of negative longer reviews, more than any other topic there. Explicit complaints about the 50/50, pity, rates or "predatory" design appear in 9% of longer reviews and 16% of negative ones. Players describe losing several 50/50s in a row, the 75/25 odds on the signature W-Engines that many agents need, and the cost of guaranteeing a character and weapon with real money. "It punishes players for saving their pulls and makes all that time and effort feel wasted." is a typical complaint. Limited agents can be absent for a year or more ("All characters that you see though the story havent had a rerun in ages, and probably never will."), the standard pool is mostly older units, and no new A-rank agents arrived for a long stretch. Several reviewers point to Wuthering Waves' guaranteed weapon banner as the better deal, and a few call Neverness to Everness more generous.

Performance: stutter, DX12 and the new regionMedium

Stutter, frame drops, crashes or poor optimization come up in 12% of longer reviews. Reviewers blame the DX12 mode with ray tracing and DLSS that came with the 3.0 update, along with the new Roscaelifer region and busy city hubs. Some find the game CPU-bound ("My high-end GPU barely hits 50% usage while my CPU is pinned at 100%, yet I'm still getting constant stutters and frame drops."), and some found the Steam build ran worse than the standalone launcher. The workaround reviewers suggest is switching back to DX11. A few AMD owners complain that the new DX12 features were limited to Nvidia cards. Plenty of others report smooth play, even on older laptops.

The Steam port: launcher inside the launcher, accounts and missing featuresMedium

Pressing Play on Steam still opens a HoYoverse launcher, and that is the Steam-specific complaint reviewers raise most; one negative review asks "What's the point of putting a game on steam and forcing us to still use the hoyo launcher?" Problems specific to the Steam version come up in 12% of longer reviews, most of them written in June, the launch month. Players also hit account trouble: logging into the wrong account with no working switch button, no Google login, a hard-to-undo link between Steam and HoYoverse accounts, and in a few cases a fresh account instead of their existing progress. Others note missing resource management for deleting finished content, no pre-download of patches, no Steam achievements and repeated multi-gigabyte downloads at login. Several veterans went back to HoYoPlay for these reasons, and several reviews share launch-option fixes that skip the launcher.

Menus, tutorials and too many currenciesMedium

Menu sprawl, constant pop-ups, forced tutorials and the number of currencies draw complaints in 11% of longer reviews and 22% of negative longer reviews; among critics, only the gacha comes up more often. New players and returners alike describe being overwhelmed. "Every single menu in the game is a chore." and "It's a tutorial and menu simulator disguised as a gacha-pon." are two of the harsher lines. Even positive reviewers call the UI cluttered and the agent skill descriptions walls of jargon.

Too much talking between fightsMedium

Newcomers in particular say it takes hours before the game lets them play, that short fights are sandwiched between long conversations, and that dialogue choices rarely change anything; one asked "why the hell do conversations have to last ten times longer than they should?" The amount of dialogue, cutscenes and visual-novel scenes draws objections in 8% of longer reviews and 16% of negative longer reviews. Players who do like the story still call some chapters padded, and a couple of critics object that skipping needs a confirmation each time.

Gear grind: drive discs, energy and W-EnginesLow

Smaller groups, a few percent of longer reviews each, complain about drive-disc substat RNG, the daily energy cap on farming, and needing signature W-Engines to complete an agent. "I've had to wait a whole day just to run two missions and level up a new character once." captures the energy complaint; disc complaints focus on rolls landing on useless stats.

Huge install and repeated downloadsLow

The 70 to 80 GB install, extra downloads after the Steam download finishes and long waits before the first play session come up in 3% of longer reviews. A handful report the game re-downloading several gigabytes every time they log in.

Few playable male charactersLow

3% of longer reviews ask for more male agents or complain that the roster is overwhelmingly female; "the only major negative with Zenless Zone Zero is that it really do be Menless Zone Zero..." is one fan's version. Some add that male S-ranks tend to launch just before a stronger female agent, which discourages pulling for them.

Lost accounts and slow supportLow

A small number of reviewers lost access to accounts, through age-verification deletions, locked accounts or linking mistakes, and describe support responses as slow or unhelpful. These reviews are few, and angry.

3. The player conversation

The conversation is loud, affectionate and heavily meme-driven. Most reviews are short, and many of those are jokes about the fan service, copypastas or a favorite character's name. The longer reviews weigh the combat and presentation against the gacha odds, and they often compare the game with Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Wuthering Waves and Neverness to Everness, sometimes to call this the best HoYoverse game or the best action gacha.

15% of longer reviews come from players who say they played before the Steam release, often for hundreds or thousands of hours on another platform. They raise Season 2, endgame balance and the launcher far more often than other reviewers: Season 2 comes up in 17% of their longer reviews versus 6% for everyone else, endgame in 28% versus 10%, and the launcher in 17% versus 9%. Complaints about menus and tutorials come up at about the same rate from both groups, while newcomers are the ones describing hours of setup, downloads and dialogue before their first real fight.

Sentiment held steady over time. Launch week drew 2,624 reviews at 89% positive, and most later weeks landed between 88% and 92%. There was one dip to 79% in the week of August 24, with no single complaint behind it, and the partial week of October 19 sat at 85%. The Steam-port complaints were concentrated at launch: June accounts for 46% of all reviews but 69% of those raising launcher, account or missing-feature problems.

4. What the developers could do

1. Soften the banner odds, starting with a guaranteed signature W-Engine. The gacha is the most-mentioned topic in negative reviews, and several reviewers ask for guaranteed weapon banners like competing games have, plus older limited agents added to the standard pool or rerun more often.
2. Let the Steam version launch straight into the game. The launcher inside Steam is the Steam-specific complaint reviewers raise most, and several reviews already share launch-option workarounds.
3. Fix account switching and linking on Steam. Reviewers report a switch-account button that logs them straight back in, no Google login, a 30-day wait after linking the wrong account, and progress landing on a fresh account.
4. Fix DX12 stutter and CPU-bound frame drops, and open the new graphics options to AMD cards. Performance complaints cluster on the DX12 mode, the Roscaelifer region and busy hubs; players fall back to DX11, and AMD owners are locked out of the new DX12 features.
5. Cut down forced tutorials, pop-ups and currencies. After the gacha itself, menu and tutorial overload is the most cited complaint among negative longer reviews, from new and returning players alike.
6. Tighten story dialogue and make skipping a single press. Newcomers say they wait hours for gameplay and that fights end quickly between long conversations, and even fans call some chapters padded.
7. Bring the standalone launcher's resource management and pre-downloads to Steam, and add Steam achievements. Players cite these missing features as their reason for going back to HoYoPlay, along with repeated multi-gigabyte downloads at login.
8. Rein in endgame HP inflation and banner-specific buffs. Long-time players say boss HP keeps rising and endgame buffs favor the current banner agent, which pushes older characters out even after their buffs.