Zenless Zone Zero is HoYoverse’s next title following the release of Honkai: Star Rail. It’s set in an urban fantasy environment. The city doesn’t look like places from Honkai, but it features similarities with the last title, which led players to wonder whether they’re set in the same universe.
New Emiru is a city set in a dystopian world. Players will explore its streets and most secret places while fighting the threat of Hollows. Although the city features a general architecture different from Honkai, some elements are common to both titles. That’s not the case at all with Genshin Impact, HoYoverse’s flagship title on the other hand. While some fans looked for correlations between both worlds, nothing seems to support the hypothesis of its universe colliding with ZZZ’s, similar to Honkai and Genshin.
Here’s whether ZZZ is set in the same universe as the Honkai license.
Is Zenless Zone Zero set in the same universe as Honkai?
Many players seem to think both games are set in the same universe because they’re both in a futuristic, dystopian setup. You can discover several different planets in Honkai and the universe is vast, so it’s easy to think New Emiru could have a place in some distant galaxy. But there are also other elements that can make fans think the games are linked in the lore.
One of those common points is Belobog. Both names are present in both games but don’t refer to the same thing. In Honkai: Star Rail, Belobog is the only city that survived a cataclysm. In ZZZ, it’s the name of a faction, Belobog Heavy Industries. It designates a company specialized in construction machinery and operates in dangerous areas plagued by Hollows.
Can both share a link? If the company ends up thriving, we can imagine it giving its name to a city that would be entirely built by it. Its technology could have been part of why the city survived the Eternal Freeze —although the devs specified it’s thanks to the blessing of Preservation. Still, the Belobog term might be a mere reference to Honkai in ZZZ, without further implications.
That’s what the developer claims. In an interview with Pocket Tactics, producer Zhenyu Li said the coincidence was purely accidental. Similarity aside, we still don’t know enough to make assumptions between both universes. ZZZ is still in development, so players have yet to discover all of the content it’s going to offer at its full launch. The title also has yet to get an official time window for its release.
In conclusion, there’s no definitive answer on whether Honkai and ZZZ are in the same universe —but both lores will most likely remain separate, as both teams working on those titles are different. Besides, it’s not customary for HoYoverse to create games that share the same lore, except when it’s from the same license (such as Honkai titles).
You can still expect to see some references to HoYo’s other games in ZZZ, though.
