Last week, Genshin Impact developer Hoyoverse released its latest gacha game into the world. It’s been a massive success, garnering 50 million downloads in three days and earning a massive $25 million in the first five — a figure that’s, unbelievably, still behind the launch-week revenue of both Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. Despite that drop in sales, one area where the new game has a leg up over its predecessors is the simple appeal of its sci-fi setting, and one little street in particular.
Zenless Zone Zero takes place in the city of New Eridu. While it’s technically a post-apocalyptic, set after interdimensional creatures razed the original city of Eridu, it largely looks like a modern city. Unlike Hoyoverse’s other games, Zenless Zone Zero keeps its battles confined to closed stages, so very little of its world can actually be explored. It’s certainly a smaller feeling game because of that, but the one part of New Eridu you’re free to spend time in more than makes up for it.
In Zenless Zone Zero, you play as one of a pair of twins, Belle and Wise, who together run the Random Play video store. A staple of New Eridu’s Sixth Street, Random Play serves both as a hub for local cinephiles and the base of operations for the twins’ more adventurous business as guides through the city’s perilous dungeons. Running the shop in Zenless Zone Zero just means selecting a few movies to promote at a time and occasionally making recommendations for curious customers. It’s not much, but having Random Play as a base makes your character feel more grounded in the world, offering them a home to sleep in and a reason to interact with neighbors.
Just outside Random Play is — in my opinion — Sixth Street’s crown jewel. Howl’s Newsstand gives you a chance to earn some free loot with a daily scratch-off lottery card and a peek at the front of the day’s newspaper. That’s all well and good, but what makes the newsstand special is proprietor Howl, who is in fact a dog. Just a regular dog wearing human clothes and running a small business. There’s really no more to it than that, but Hoyoverse’s commitment to such a silly bit without further comment is inspiring.
While Howl is top dog on Sixth Street, the neighborhood is also home to plenty of stray cats, who are more than just decoration. Zenless Zone Zero has a number of daily and weekly quests that are strikingly simple to complete, focused more on getting you to spend time using Sixth Street’s amenities than going on world-changing quests. One of these is a quest to simply snap a photo of a particular alley cat with your camera.
These quests also ask you to visit two other neighborhood staples — General Chop’s noodle shop and Coff Cafe, a coffee shop run by a cheerful mustachioed robot. Both grant bonuses that can help you perform better and earn more rewards in combat, but they’re just as valuable for what they add to the game’s vibes. Becoming a regular at both shops is another way of making players feel ingrained in the neighborhood, making it just a little more pleasant to spend time there.
All of Sixth Street’s shops also drive home another great element of the game’s design — its NPCs. Where most games would be content to simply recycle character models as shopkeepers, Zenless Zone Zero makes each of them bespoke and memorable. Making the daily rounds to buy a scratcher, a cup of coffee, and a bowl of noodles could easily feel like a chore, but it becomes a treat when you’ve got a handful of unique characters to visit along the way. The same is even true of the wandering NPCs who populate the street. Each is a distinct character, and even those you can’t interact with often make comments you can overhear as you pass by. All of that combines to make Sixth Street feel like a real neighborhood, especially since NPCs have different routines that change as the day progresses.
There’s a lot not to love about Zenless Zone Zero. I’ve found its combat almost unbearably dull, and it’s dragged down by the weight of cash-siphoning gambling mechanics like all gacha games. I don’t think it will keep me playing for long, and I’m not even particularly excited to keep building my squad of anime mercenaries, but a good RPG city can keep me captivated for a long while. If Zenless Zone Zero can continue to build out its compelling New Eridu, that might be enough to keep me checking in on the neighbors from time to time.
