ZZZ devs “don’t feel regret” about having to change their vision for the game, Zhenyu Li says
By Marco Wutz
HoYoverse’s youngest game, Zenless Zone Zero, will celebrate its first birthday on July 4, 2025, and the release of Version 2.0 this Friday with its monumental changes to the gameplay formula is a testament to both the turbulent start the action RPG had and the adaptability of its creators.
On this occasion, I had the opportunity to ask ZZZ’s lead producer Zhenyu Li some questions via email — almost exactly a year after speaking to him about ZZZ’s release in person.
Li told me that the ZZZ team doesn’t “feel regret” about having to change its vision so drastically, emphasizing that “innovation isn’t achieved overnight.” The developers are focused on the future much more than they are on the past.
That future, Li said, will see even more changes. Instead of delivering bite-sized story arcs that can be wrapped up over the span of a single update, the team will focus more on overarching storytelling in Season 2, which leaves more room for characters’ relationships to develop. The team also wants to return to the concept of faction-based Chain Attacks — something ZZZ 1.0 featured with Ben and Koleda, but wasn’t revisited with releases since then.
Li also went into some detail regarding the inspiration for Waifei Peninsula, how Agents’ combat styles come to be, and how the team will handle an additional platform with its already tight dev cycle.
Find the full ZZZ anniversary Q&A with Zhenyu Li below.
Q: ZZZ has changed a lot from the initial vision that we saw at launch. While I’m sure that you’re happy to be able to satisfy more players with the current version, aren’t you a little sad as a creator that the original vision wasn’t deemed to be appealing enough?
A: One of the constant challenges faced by a long-running game is change, and we are well aware of this. That's why the development team of Zenless Zone Zero has always been "seeking change." Combining game update requirements and player feedback, we explore numerous possibilities during development and select the best ones to present to players. But when content goes live, that's just the beginning. Some gameplay mechanics prove themselves in practice, while others may not meet our expectations, requiring further adjustments.
Innovation isn't achieved overnight; we need to make many trade-offs. Therefore, we don't feel regret but rather focus our energy on the future, striving to bring more interesting content to players through change.
Q: Looking back at the first year of ZZZ, what was the most surprising piece of feedback you got from players?
A: For our team, Zenless Zone Zero is a long-term service game, and we're committed to listening closely to players and polishing content to serve everyone well. Player feedback never comes as a surprise to us. Moving forward, we'll continue to refine the gaming experience, creating an ever-evolving game world that's truly worthy of players' long-term commitment.
Q: Another big update to the combat system is coming. Can you take us through the reasons why you deemed more changes necessary and what the future of ZZZ’s combat will look like?
A: In Version 2.0, to provide players with a more exhilarating combat experience, we've explored and upgraded the sandbox-style combat stages based on Zenless Zone Zero's unique gameplay features. Players will experience 3D combat stages with greater freedom, broader exploration space, and more fluid combat encounters. Accordingly, we've made iterative improvements to squad configuration and enemy engagement mechanics to make exploration and combat more streamlined and smooth. Additionally, we've introduced the Miasma mechanism, adding more strategic depth to boss stages.
For our long-term combat experience planning, first, regarding more challenging combat gameplay, our team continues to consider how to design endgame content that properly showcases players' combat skills, improves battle techniques, and achieves character progression. In the future, we'll continue to explore and expand more combat-focused gameplay features, such as the "Simulated Battle Trial" coming in Version 2.1, to deliver richer action game thrills and satisfying gameplay mechanics. Second, we're exploring ways to balance the needs of different player types, from content-focused to action-oriented players. Zenless Zone Zero's core objective is to bring the joy of action games to a broader audience. Therefore, beyond core experiences like combat, features such as daily missions and mini-games are designed to meet diverse player needs. Moving forward, the team will continue exploring ways to better integrate content-based and combat-based gameplay to enhance interconnectivity between the game's various play styles.
Q: Going into Season 2 of the story, what are the lessons the team learned from Season 1 in terms of writing and presentation?
A: From a narrative perspective, Zenless Zone Zero's early storytelling focused more on presenting individual version chapters, delivering complete story arcs within each version to provide players with a fulfilling narrative experience. Starting from Season 2, we will place greater emphasis on long-term main storyline development and setup, exploring characters in more depth and showcasing more multi-dimensional and complex character relationships. Additionally, we're working to integrate narrative more tightly with core gameplay mechanics, such as combining story sequences with 3D stage experiences, allowing players to become more immersed in Zenless Zone Zero's story through exploration and combat.
Q: It looks like Belle and Wise will have a change of scenery in Season 2. What are the inspirations for Waifei Peninsula and what makes its urban lifestyle different from Sixth Street and the other areas we’ve been to in Season 1?
A: When designing Waifei Peninsula, my hometown of Guangdong and its local culture provided me with a great deal of inspiration. In Failume Heights, there are many establishments commonly found in Cantonese culture, such as Yum Cha Sin, pawnshops, and traditional restaurants, which give the entire city a more authentic living atmosphere.
Additionally, most of our team members have watched many Hong Kong films, and in our conception of Waifei Peninsula, we also drew inspiration from the cultural fusion found in Hong Kong cinema, allowing Zenless Zone Zero Season 2's unique artistic design and cultural expression to be appreciated by players worldwide. The overall design of Waifei Peninsula still revolves around modern urban trendy elements, but perhaps unlike the previous Sixth Street and Lumina Square, we've made more diverse stylistic expressions and attempts based on the existing trendy urban impressions, aiming to bring players a fresh experience. Even in the real world, the image and definition of a trendy city aren't limited to just one type.
Q: Belle and Wise also have new duties, managing a temple instead of their video store. Are there plans to make the management sim aspects of this a little more in-depth than the video store management?
A: In Season 2, the Proxy siblings who joined Yunkui Summit must not only resolve the main story crisis but also manage daily temple affairs, taking on the important task of renovating and reviving Suibian Temple. The temple management gameplay is our brand new upgrade to New Eridu's daily gameplay system. Players will raise funds through various gameplay mechanics, including Bangboo dispatch, to achieve the goal of city revival. Through this gameplay, we aim to connect the interactions between various shops in Failume Heights and Hollow exploration, further enhancing players' awareness of the city environment and enriching their overall experience.
You can find a more in-depth look at the management game mode in our Suibian Temple Restoration walkthrough.
Q: A previous developer video touched on the map experience being revamped. How exactly will the experience of exploring the game change for players going forward?
A: The expansion of gameplay mechanics requires upgrading the game's basic functions and innovating, and Version 2.0 places equal emphasis on foundational infrastructure and design. To enhance the combat stage experience, we've introduced new navigation features like the mini-map and world map. Through the mini-map, players can track their current location in real-time and follow missions more intuitively.
On the world map, Proxies can view all locations in New Eridu discovered so far, though, with more updates coming in the future, this is just a glimpse of the Zenless Zone Zero universe. In the Lemnian Hollow of Version 2.0, players will be able to mark locations with Fissure Beacons for teleporting, respawning, and restoring Stamina. In short, Version 2.0 will provide you with a more comprehensive and convenient mapping and navigation system, helping you quickly locate desired targets and teleport to your destinations of choice.
Q: ZZZ’s factions have been at the heart of the game since launch and characters often still have specific bonuses when fielded with members of the same faction. However, we haven’t really seen any more special animations like the ones for Koleda and Ben. Has this feature been dropped for good?
A: Faction Chain Attack is one of the future directions for combat design. Based on Agents' gameplay specialties, we are eager to explore more combat mechanics and possibilities to bring players a more diverse combat experience.
Q: Hugo and Lycaon seem to be sharing a few moves, such as their kicks — probably due to learning their respective fighting styles together from Jack. Can you take us through the process of how fighting styles/animations are decided on for characters and how much attention is given to such little details that enhance the story vs. things simply looking cool?
A: The character's combat style and animation design do not come from a linear workflow, but rather from a synergistic collaboration between the planning, art, animation, and IP teams. Typically, the IP background provides the animation team with direction on character personalities, and then based on the original artwork, the team draws inspiration from anime content they've seen across different platforms, brainstorms animation ideas, and sometimes even acts out the character in the performance room to find inspiration and capture reference footage. After developing some general concepts and ideas, the combat design, animation, and IP teams discuss various creative possibilities, determine what's feasible, and clarify gameplay logic.
Finally, to enhance the character's depth and highlights, they might return to the art team to reinforce certain established elements in the original artwork based on animation conclusions. Therefore, narrative details and visual presentation are factors we consider equally when designing combat actions, with neither taking precedence. As a result, players find the character's story more convincing, and we're delighted that these thoughtful details can bring players pleasant surprises.
Hugo. . . Hugo and Lycaon. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1747058415/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/dbltap_en_international_web/01jv2cqnc2t2796y7n3z.jpg. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1746717603/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/dbltap_en_international_web/01jtr7pwsbc8hr56n5sg.jpg. Lycaon
Q: The ZZZ team must already be working on a tight schedule to bring us these big updates on a regular basis. What does the addition of another platform in the form of Xbox Series X|S mean for the development pipeline?
A: Zenless Zone Zero has accumulated valuable experience in console platform development, establishing automated testing processes and build pipelines, which laid a solid foundation for our Xbox platform support and achieved efficient multi-platform update synergy.
Additionally, we've allocated dedicated development and testing personnel for Xbox adaptation, established effective communication channels with the Xbox team, and compressed adaptation cycles through parallel multi-platform validation environments. Therefore, even with the addition of new platforms, we can maintain our existing game update cadence and ensure stable cross-platform content coverage.
ZZZ is now available for free on PC, PS5, iOS, Android, and Xbox Series X|S. Check out our ZZZ 2.0 impressions for a more in-depth look at the latest update and remind yourself of the ZZZ 2.0 banners to plan your pulls.
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