Zenless Zone Zero Preview: Ambitious, Chill Gameplay With Immaculate Vibes

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feels like it occupies two opposite spaces — at times, it feels like HoYoverse's most ambitious effort yet. It's a savvy blend of some of the mechanics that have made and popular, added to a foundation of innovation and style, creating something that's unique to the developer's offerings thus far. At other times, it feels explicitly designed to be accessible and relaxed, with just as much emphasis placed on creating a café setting people might actually want to spend time in as the enemies our heroes will fight throughout 's story.

Ever since spending time in the beta, I've been wondering just how well this amalgamation of philosophies will work in what's ultimately a gacha game. That descriptor means two important things: it needs enough depth to keep players coming back to play; and it needs to be different enough from other games on the market — even its siblings at HoYoverse — to factor in to busy players' schedules, often unable to juggle more than a handful of live service titles at best. In a recent hands-on event in Singapore, I had the chance to test what was essentially the launch build (minus a few surprises and story bits), and I'm now quite sure that when launches, it will gracefully compete with its contemporaries as a stand-out live service game.

More than anything during the preview, what stood out the most was just how compelling the concept of New Eridu city is. Everything feels hyper-connected in a way that's much harder to achieve in other HoYoverse titles because of their varied locales and expansive cities — as the last bastion of humanity, New Eridu is simply where everyone is by default. That sense of community makes the struggles of the populace feel very intimate, even if it's as all-encompassing as surviving in the face of disaster. Robots, strange creatures, and humans co-exist and form a network of people who support each other.

It's not a revolutionary concept, but it is a fascinating one in a gacha game, which often to get by on