Is Zenless Zone Zero open world?

Another miHoYo gem is on the horizon as Zenless Zone Zero, which is the next RPG game from the devs, officially moves closer to release. Based on its roster of other games, you might be wondering whether ZZZ will end up being an open world title.

ZZZ will transport you to the futuristic fantasy world of New Eridu, and this location will offer lots of new content to explore. But will ZZZ be open world or instead offer more limited exploration possibilities?

Is Zenless Zone Zero an open world game?

ZZZ is not an open-world game. Instead, you’ll mostly be navigating smaller confined areas in New Eridu throughout your gameplay. If you’re a fan of miHoYo’s other work, you can think of it as being more similar to Honkai: Star Rail than Genshin Impact in terms of world exploration mechanics.

Your exploration mostly focuses on teleporting into Hollows portals and running through combat situations within them. It’s kind of a roguelike dungeon crawler game, but you also have a base area you can more freely explore.

The base area includes the main shop you work in, which is the Random Play video store. Belle and Wise, who make up the Proxy known as Phaethon, run it and you’ll choose from one of the two characters to play upon beginning your journey in New Eridu. You can then wander around the area as whichever character you chose to play as.

Additionally, you can also head outside the shop and stroll along Sixth Street. There are some interactive areas around here like Howl’s newsstand where you can scratch a ticket for rewards once per day and General Chop’s ramen shop you can visit for foods that grant buffs.

To actually tackle combat, you must take on commissions through the Random Play shop. These are the missions that send you out into the world with a team of three plus one Bangboo to tackle combat challenges and where you’ll find another opportunity for a bit of exploration, but it’s still fairly minimal.

ZZZ is still in a beta state, so it’s also likely more explorable areas may be added in the future. But for now, it’s basically just the commission Hollow areas and the moderately sized Sixth Street command center area with a few shops that are available to explore.

Although ZZZ isn’t expected to be released until 2024, you can get to know the playable characters and content included in it ahead of its public release if you want to be prepared for when miHoYo’s next big project officially arrives.