Zenless Zone Zero Shows the Limits of Mobile Action Games

Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) is the latest release from miHoYo, who have had hit after hit following the mega-success of Genshin Impact. With their latest, they've gone from open-world exploration RPG to a brawler, and while the game has plenty of style, it is noticeably lacking in substance and shows just how far action design is stretched on mobile.

Flashy fighting

Our story takes place in a world that looks like an anime mixed with the comic art of Persona 5. In this world, dimensional pockets known as hollows appear and it's up to unique groups of hunters to go in and deal with the monsters within them. You play as a brother/sister team who, after a job goes wrong, partner up with an AI to rebuild their organization and solve some major crises along the way.

The style of this game is fantastic, with every screen, menu, and shop interface looking amazing. Combat, as with other games of this kind, focuses on your party of three being brought into a mission. Every character is ranked with either 4 or 5 stars, and each comes with different properties and roles. The character design looks straight out of the over-the-top styling of Guilty Gear, with characters large and small who can deliver massive pain.

For the combat itself, every character has a normal, special, and ultimate ability. As you're fighting, you can swap between the other two characters with a push of a button. Swapping while an enemy is about to attack can trigger a counter and set the enemy up for more damage. You can swap between the other two characters for more damage with character-link combos.

Progression is tied to leveling up characters, upgrading their different attacks, and equipping W-Engines which are ZZZ's version of equipment. Just like their previous games, W-Engines come in different rarities and there is a double gacha system to act them and characters too.

Not so shiny

Speaking of gacha, if you're hoping for an evolution of that mechanic, to go with the game's style, you're not going to find it here. The drop rate for 5-star characters is 0.6%, which is actually .1% lower than their previous games. And remember, just getting a character is not enough, as you'll need a corresponding W-Engine to get the most power out of them. I didn't get a chance to see ZZZ's version of the accessories from Genshin, but I'm assuming it's going to be just as grindy and annoying to get.

While the gacha system is to be expected, the most unexpected part of the game for me was just how bland the combat was compared to the style of the art. ZZZ follows a similar style of combat seen in games like Punishing Grey Raven, which has been considered by fans to be the top of the market. However, PGR is also bad by action game standards, and it's time to address the action-sized elephant in the room.

Mobile does not equal action

While ZZZ and PGR are not bad games because of their action design, they are still very underwhelming if held to any standard of action set by console or PC games released in the past 24 years. Even the original Devil May Cry, released in 2001, is lightyears ahead of these games. The problem is, no matter how advanced phones get and how high the budgets are for these games, you can't do advanced action mechanics with a touch-screen UI. There is only so much you can do when the player's only way of interacting is either to tap or hold parts of the screen.

With those UI limitations, having different attack types, combos, and methods of play can't work at the same level as the game does on other platforms. You can't have multiple types of attacks and unique combos in a game that has at most three attacks and a dodge. So instead, the complexity gets placed on the RPG mechanics and non-action elements. In PGR, you can match different colors of attacks on the skill bar in order to boost them up while you are running around fighting. And in ZZZ's case, this complexity comes into play with the gear system.

After playing ZZZ, I revisited the second big miHoYo game, Honkai: Star Rail, and found an interesting contrast. That game has very challenging RPG systems and mechanics, but that just makes the gacha all the more punishing. In action-heavy mobile games, getting good at whatever advanced element is featured – dodging, blocking, etc. – allows you to circumvent the need for higher-quality characters to some extent.

Earlier in 2023, a mobile game based on Devil May Cry came and went quickly after months of redesigns and streamlining its combat down to the same level as the other mobile games we've discussed. The problem with all three is that they are flashy, but that's about it. There's no greater depth to the combat mechanics in the same way as the greats of the genre. Even going to something like Ultrakill which has elements from action design, there is more to the game than just shooting a gun.

I do think a hero-collector action game easily sells itself, but not with the action design that is limited to mobile.

Action-less

There will be a market for ZZZ just as there is for the other action games on mobile, but with this one, it seems like miHoYo is stretching the limits of that formula. Unlike Star Rail which had some legitimate challenging RPG mechanics and design, I'm just not seeing much here other than the style. Give me the budget and the team, and I could design an action-game hero collector that would bankrupt a few countries.

As the mobile market is beginning to extend further into PC and console audiences, it's going to be interesting to see whether or not there will be another design evolution in the coming years, as shiny loot and banners can only hold someone's interest for so long.

For more about F2P design, be sure to read my book examining the genre.