You might be curious about whether or not Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) is an open-world game or not. The answer is no, it isn't an open world game. ZZZ by HoYoverse is actually designed to be a hub based Urban Action RPG, making it more similar stylistically to character action games such as Devil May Cry or Bayonetta than other open-world RPGs like Genshin Impact or Wuthering Waves.

ZZZ doesn't have persistent environments for combat to take place in across, instead players select missions (and more) from a menu, load into their chosen mission arena, defeat the enemies/final boss in that arena, and return to the main ZZZ Hub location following the completion of their mission (and after receiving their loot from the defeated bosses/enemies).

Many players are confused as the types of games they previously played on Genshin are similar to the aesthetics and themes present in the ZZZ game. However, ZZZ has a different type of gameplay than Genshin. Instead of having a smooth, continuous movement in the game, it's divided into smaller sections to enable players to focus on fast-paced combat, complete shorter game sessions, and maintain an overall urban atmosphere. Therefore, it's more accurately described as being an action “hub-based” RPG than an action “open-world” RPG.

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The World of Zenless Zone Zero

New Eridu has all of the dimensions of the world being destroyed by dimensional disasters (Hollows) and functioning as the main hub for all of the activities that you perform. Players can navigate through the various districts of New Eridu in real-time (i.e., moving from; Sixth Street, Hollow Special Operations Sector #6, Failume Heights and the extended Waifei Peninsula), where players may engage with NPCs, purchase goods from shops, accept side quests and enjoy the beautiful world and the environmental storytelling. Each section is filled with life due to the NPCs having daily routines and each faction having their own designated area, but each one is still independent of the others, and they do not comprise one single city map.

Hollows is primarily used for progressing through the game by way of “structured exploration” format. The most common means to view how structured exploration takes place in the game is via the original implementation of the gameplay style called TV Mode, which is a grid format. Each tile of the grid provides players with opportunities to interact with merchants, earn XP, discover treasure and obtain (roguelite) buffs known as Resonia. Following mixed reviews concerning the original implementation style in 2024, HoYoverse redesigned the gameplay, thus, altering the gameplay style to a puzzle-style level; therefore, minimising the gameplay's time to completion. Finally, on the reverse side of things, both Hollow Zero and Lost Void are both applied to be “contained Era-style challenges.” The player moves from room-to-room, accumulates buffers, and defeats Etherealm beings until they complete the Era Style challenge; however, the player is not travelling through an open-completed world; they are completing incremental style challenges. When you want to know more about how gameplay differs from traditional RPG's, a comparison between Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) and a classic open-world RPG like Genshin Impact can really help clarify things.

Feature Open World RPG (e.g., Genshin Impact) Zenless Zone Zero
Map Traversal Seamless and player driven Zone-based and menu driven
Exploration Freedom Very high, i.e. Players can climb, glide, discover Preferentially curated paths and loaded stages
Combat Arenas Dynamic field encounters Instanced load rooms
Time Each Day for Daily Grind 30-60 Minutes Very Typical 10 Minutes or less of Core Daily's
Flexibility of Sessions Long-form preferred Pick-up-and play friendly

What really demonstrates why ZZZ has been designed this way can be seen in how Combat is paced. Combat is fast, dense and has a fair bit of mechanical complexity added through things like perfect dodging i-frames, Daze build-up, chain attacks, Elemental Anomaly stacking and Decibel gauges all contributing toward combat flow. Since all of the combat takes place in a controlled area, HoYoverse will be able to fine-tune Enemy behaviours, staggering thresholds and encounter density much more accurately than would be the case with seamless, open-world style combat. The overhaul done to the input buffer in Version 2.5 has simplified the swapping process compared to high refresh rate systems. Tighter combat tuning is one of the primary reasons this game has been able to achieve success without having an open-world setting.

Shorter daily game loops is another notable difference. You will typically complete four Daily Commission's and use your Ether Battery to complete high priority Notorious Hunt stages, taking on average each one will be well under 30 minutes to do. Your weekly run of Hollow Zone is expected to be completed in less than 20 minutes of gaming time. Many players have found that this actually makes it easier for them to continue playing ZZZ than it is to play games where longer daily play sessions are required.

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Things You Can Explore in ZZZ

While Zenless Zone Zero is not an open world game, there is a good amount to explore within the game itself and there have been many features added since launch. Sixth Street is the main hub where you'll find Random Play, faction locations for groups like the Cunning Hares and Victoria Housekeeping, an arcade with retro mini-games, cafes and other shops, etc. Failume Heights is also another area that has been added since launch and now has its own unique feel and NPC network including the Buyan Antique Store that was mentioned during the 2.4-2.5 Dev Talk. The Waifei Peninsula is the most recent area to be added to ZZZ and is the largest expansion of the game thus far. As an example, this new coastal area introduces new builds for the commission system that will look different from the typical neon light aesthetics found in the city's center.

During the 2.4 Dev Talk, it was also revealed that two new venues just outside the Sixth Street metro stop would be opening sometime before Season 2 ends. The two new venues are the 404 Error Livehouse and a long awaited Hot Pot Restaurant. Exploration in ZZZ has evolved significantly while playing through 2.x. Players will now find various layers when exploring such as Perception Techniques, Bangboo treasure detection support, and side quests that relate your map progression to story progression. You'll notice that throughout the day, NPC's will be on different schedules, shop inventory will be fresh, and faction dialogue will be updated after you've completed the current chapter of the story. While ZZZ's style does not allow for smooth transitions to all areas of the city, many players feel that New Eridu reacts to their actions and encourages further exploration. Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) is an excellent game for certain players while extremely frustrating for others. It's essential to know these distinctions before downloading ZZZ.

Open-world games are notorious for being full of bloat — large maps with a vast number of collectibles, massive towers to climb, etc. Zenless Zone Zero focuses more on delivering fast and engaging gameplay than giving players a massive world to explore. In addition, missions have a clear goal and typically take less than 30 minutes to complete.

For fans of action RPGs who are focused primarily on combat, ZZZ is a must-play title. Players who want to improve their dodge timing, perform swap-cancels, optimize their Daze, and trigger elemental Disorder will find that ZZZ has one of the best combat systems currently available in any game (specifically by the end of 2026). The changes to combat provided by updates 2.5 and 2.6 make it feel more skill-dependent and provide new levels of versatility when it comes to seamlessly chaining attacks or changing characters.

Cross-platform play also helps ZZZ's appeal. It is available for download on PC via either HoYoPlay or the Epic Games Store, as well as through the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (which became available in June 2025), and has been supporting all mobile versions of the game since its release. Cross-save features mean that players can easily log in to ZZZ on their mobile device, play a few minutes, and then use that same account to log back into ZZZ on their PC or console later. This type of convenience and the low time commitment required for daily maintenance (usually less than 10 minutes) is why players often view ZZZ as their best secondary gacha game. ## Zenless Zone Zero Open World FAQ

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Is new eridu an open world?

No, New Eridu is not fully open-world. Instead, New Eridu is more of a collection of semi-open hub areas than a traditional open-world. Players can travel throughout places like Sixth Street, Failume Heights, Waifei Peninsula, and all the faction hubs in real-time. These areas all have NPC schedules, side quests, and environmental details that reward exploration. What players do not have is one large seamless city with no loading time, to be able to walk from any point on the map to another in real-time with no transition. That is part of the design of the game to keep loading times short (approximately three seconds on an NVMe drive), while also allowing each individual area to have a high level of detail and complexity.

Is it possible to walk freely in the hollows?

Not really. Walking in the Hollows is only done as part of mission gameplay and specific game modes. When entering one of the hollows, the player must select either a commission or activity from the menu to gain access to that hollow. Once inside the hollow, the player will be restricted to the rules for that game mode whether it is to walk in the grid-based TV Mode format or the Lost Void game mode that utilizes a room-based navigation system. Outside of mission related or specific game mode restrictions, players may not walk freely through the hollows. Quick Summary:

  • Hollow Zero is an example of how to implement BFS-style pathfinding in a world where rooms are linked together by using withered domain runs through utilizing grid

  • Lost Void relies exclusively on 3D real-time movement through visual markers based on YOLO for moving between rooms connected by the visual markers that the player can see on their screen.

  • Both games delimit exactly where you may travel in their respective worlds.

Therefore there is definitely some exploration in both games, but it will always be limited to a particular mode and controlled manner of play.

Is Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) Comparable to Genshin Impact?

Absolutely. HoYoverse produces both games, they both use anime influenced presentation, storytelling based on faction conflict, limited banner rates with 50/50 rate on pity pulls, and 1 guaranteed S rank at 90 pulls per character. Hence, this is why so many players compare these two games against each other.

However, the architecture of these two games is different from each other. Genshin Impact is an open world action RPG that is focused on exploring and traversing massive regions of land, climbing up and down cliffs and using gliders or other methods to cross gaps and engageing in battles against enemies in the respective territory being traveled through and there is a large degree of flexibility in how players choose to play the game. On the other hand, ZZZ provides players with a tighter experience in terms of the number of areas available for engaging in battle is very limited to designated hub areas .. The overall pacing of the two games is vastly different as the pacing of ZZZ is much faster than Genshin Impact, and players are required to have a higher level of mechanical accuracy when playing ZZZ than when playing Genshin Impact. If players prefer playing video games primarily based on exploration, ZZZ will likely feel more compact and constrained, whereas if players prefer to engage in gameplay that is more focused and not as time consuming, they will likely find ZZZ to be an exceptional gaming experience.

Will ZZZ Ever Become An Open World Game?

At this time (in 2026) after having been through versions 2.4 through 2.7, there do not appear to be any plans by HoYoverse to change ZZZ from a hub-based game to an open world game as they did with version 2.0 of Genshin Impact. There has been enormous amounts of effort toward expanding the currently established game structure instead of replacing the game. The continued expansion of ZZZ through the development of more hub areas, improved exploration mechanics using Perception Techniques and Bangboo treasure detection mechanics, and improved connection of map/area design to the battle encounters within the game show the that ZZZ is not going to be transformed into an open world gaming experience.

The developers of ZZZ have created multiple expansions for the game, including a major update to Hollow Zero that combined both exploration and combat into a much tighter and seamless process, as well as the introduction of the Waifei Peninsula expansion, which increased the total number of greater expanse of land that players will have to traverse and expand the player's usage of ways and means to traverse between areas . However, this does not indicate that ZZZ has been completely transformed from being two distinct gaming experiences into a single open world experience, as the core differences between instance based versus seamless based gaming will continue to exist. Thus, all indications that HoYoverse has provided thus far suggest ZZZ will continue to evolve through expansion of current gaming elements instead of changing from a genre into a more expansive/less constricted genre.

Conclusion

The final answer to the question is ZZZ an open world game? continues to remain no. ZZZ is nothing more than a hub-based action RPG that includes stylized combat, limited daily participation in the game and a highly dense urban environment. As a result of these three gaming characteristics, the overall structure of ZZZ will remain as an appealing characteristic and therefore ZZZ should be viewed as a positive characteristic of the gaming experience.

If you have or are considering playing ZZZ, do not to go into ZZZ with any expectations of having larger than life battles, a quest-based game mechanics, or access to an infinitely large world to explore. Since the overall structure of ZZZ will not change, it is highly likely ZZZ will continue to evolve and develop in a manner that makes it appear to be a richer and more immersive experience than currently established. If the game you enjoy playing is similar in size to ZZZ, Version 2.7 continues to be the best and most polished action RPG that you can have, play now, and absolutely in the future post 2026.