New Eridu Makes Room for the Downtime
In Zenless Zone Zero, the city hub is more than a menu between fights. New Eridu gives the player ordinary places to return to: a video store, neighborhood shops, and an arcade. The central characters run Random Play, a video-rental shop on Sixth Street, so errands and conversations grow out of their everyday role in the setting rather than appearing as unrelated activities.
That structure creates a deliberate contrast. Missions send the player into dangerous Hollows—unstable spaces where the game’s combat unfolds—while the streets offer a slower rhythm: check in with characters, handle small tasks, or play an arcade game. The shift lets the city feel inhabited between action sequences, and gives players a change of pace without leaving the game world.
A Different Kind of Action-Game Rhythm
The combat is built around quick character swaps and coordinated attacks. In a fight, switching among team members can turn an opening into a chain of hits; outside a fight, the player can spend time on activities that ask for attention in a very different way. A short arcade challenge, for instance, rewards a few minutes of play rather than another combat encounter.
This variety also changes how progression feels. The player is not always moving from one battle to the next: the neighborhood becomes a recurring place, and small routines help connect missions to the characters who live there. The hub makes the action feel like part of a daily life, not the whole of it.
That choice gives Zenless Zone Zero a distinct texture within HoYoverse’s catalog: its urban setting is expressed not just through neon and monster-filled missions, but through the time spent back at the video store or wandering down the block.
