If you play Honkai: Star Rail, you already helped test Zenless Zone Zero

It feels like many event modes are field tests for the upcoming title

It’s been very interesting to play Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail and watch the two titles develop in parallel. It’s meme’d about a lot, but Honkai: Star Rail really has gotten essentially all the improvements to quality of life that Genshin Impact players have dreamed about since release – though some of them are finally on the way to the studio’s flagship game as well now. Honkai: Star Rail getting a free 5-Star character to celebrate some award wins, which Genshin never got, is just the latest such example. It doesn’t help that said character is called Dr. Ratio, which basically makes the memes write themselves. In any case, it shows that the different project teams are learning from each other.

Zenless Zone Zero, the upcoming game from HoYoverse that is currently in closed beta, is not as big a step up, presumably because much of its development was spent alongside Honkai: Star Rail and benefited from the same conclusions the developers pulled from Genshin. Heck, I’d argue that Zenless Zone Zero is a step down compared to Honkai: Star Rail in a few areas, but that’s a topic for another day.

HoYoverse is pulling our strings – for our own benefit / Zenless Zone Zero

Instead I wanted to write about something really funny that occurred to me as I played more and more Zenless Zone Zero – that is: I’ve already, in some way, played some parts of it before. And chances are, if you’ve been active in Honkai: Star Rail this year, you have as well.

The ghost-hunting event in the current Honkai: Star Rail version featured this social media page in the game that felt super authentic, because it represented quite well how users behave on the internet, especially when it comes to fandoms of streamers and believers in conspiracy theories. Well, as it so happens, social media is a thing in Zenless Zone Zero as well – like in that event in Honkai: Star Rail, you can scour through posts and check for possible missions to take on there. It doesn’t have the same interactivity in Zenless Zone Zero, but in regards to visuals and tone, it’s very close.

Let’s go back a little further. Remember the Belobog Museum event? We had to manage profits by assigning the correct tour guides to the different sections. In Zenless Zone Zero, you manage a video tape store, which essentially replaces the Daily Assignments from Honkai: Star Rail and provides you with a steady flow of cash and basic resources. Mechanically, it works somewhat similar to that event: You collect more video tapes of different genres and assign tapes of those the game tells you will be popular over the next day to be promoted. A growing number of store helpers, some of which provide bonuses for certain genres, can be assigned to enhance profits as well. Certainly feels familiar and oddly satisfying – I wish there’d be even more stuff we can do with our store.

There is more where that’s coming from, though. Both the Underground Treasure Hunt event from Honkai: Star Rail update 1.2 and the Swarm Disaster mode in the Simulated Universe, which have these grid-based exploration elements going on, are strongly represented in Zenless Zone Zero. The main activity in the game (Hollow Exploration) aside from combat or hanging out in the city hub is exactly that kind of grid-based exploration, though the grids are represented as TVs. It includes some of the gadgets and mechanics found in Underground Treasure Hunt and – in some modes – has the same roguelike aspect as Swarm Disaster. Hollow Exploration is a bit controversial, as many playtesters have it pegged as the weakest part of the game, but – again – not a topic for today.

Hollow Exploration has people's minds split at the moment / HoYoverse

It feels like many of the big flagship events we’ve had so far in Honkai: Star Rail were essentially field tests for some of the mechanics found in Zenless Zone Zero. I don’t know if that’s actually the case or just a coincidence or perhaps simply my imagination, but I can’t unsee it now. And here’s the thing: All of these events got a very positive reception in Honkai: Star Rail, so them being present, in some way, in Zenless Zone Zero is a good thing, even if it wears thin some of the novelty to be found in the upcoming game for fans of Honkai: Star Rail.

At the end of the day I’ll gladly continue to be HoYoverse’s experimental guinea pig if it means we’ll continue to get fun and high-quality event modes every update – it’s a win-win, really.

Zenless Zone Zero teased for 2024 release at The Game Awards 2023