Is Zenless Zone Zero a gacha game?

The world of New Eridu is calling, and miHoYo is hard at work to deliver its upcoming RPG Zenless Zone Zero to both a devoted fanbase and new players alike. The devs have a history with gacha gems, so you might be wondering whether ZZZ will follow suit.

There is a colorful cast of characters to meet in ZZZ and the only way to really get to know them is to add them to your roster, so knowing whether or not you’re dealing with the gacha system is important for understanding how to unlock new characters.

Is Zenless Zone Zero gacha?

ZZZ is a gacha game similar in style to miHoYo’s other work, and you’ll primarily obtain new characters by pulling through the gacha system. Characters are broken up across different rarities with the best of the best exclusively being available through the signature featured banner in the gacha system.

In ZZZ, the gacha system is called Signal Search, and you can spend Signal Searches to obtain new recruits, otherwise known as Agents. Like the dev’s other gacha games, this system also comes with certain guarantees to ease the brutal nature of the gacha system, like guaranteeing an S Rank upon reaching 90 pulls if you haven’t yet obtained one.

For the beta, the banner is called “Mellow Waveride” and the character with an increased drop rate is Ellen. Instead of star rarity, characters in ZZZ are assigned specific ranks to designate how strong they are.

• S-Rank characters are the equivalent of five-star units in miHoYo’s other games, and are the absolute best of the best.
• A-Rank characters are everyone else, effectively functioning as the four-star units and the majority of characters in this game.

There is also a B Rank, but it seems to be exclusively reserved for W-Engines and Bangboos so far. MiHoYo usually only divides their characters into two different ranks, and ZZZ seems to be sticking to this pattern.

The best characters in ZZZ will be exclusively available on rotating banners only available to pull on for a limited amount of time. If it continues to closely follow in Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail’s footsteps as it’s expected to, these banners will probably return every six months or so to offer you another chance at obtaining an exclusive S-Rank recruit.

ZZZ doesn’t have an official release date just yet, but it’s expected to debut sometime in 2024. In the meantime, we’ve already met many of New Eridu’s iconic recruits and seen a bit of what New Eridu has to offer, so you can prepare for your journey into the Hollows ahead of time.