Within the realm of stay service video games, the “model 2.0” replace tends to carry some particular significance, typically coinciding with anniversaries and additions so vital they might, because the saying goes “change every little thing.” Judging the temporary time I spent with a preview construct of Zenless Zone Zero‘s 2.0 replace supplied by HoYoVerse, I would not a lot name it a new recreation, however the enlargement does really feel vital sufficient that lapsed or lazy gamers would possibly need to drop in to take a look at what they’ve missed within the interim. Model 2.0, formally titled “The place Clouds Embrace the Daybreak,” additionally occurs to herald a wave of recent gamers as properly, because it coincides with the launch of ZZZ on Xbox Sequence X|S, bringing the sport to a complete new platform.
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For the document, I am a kind of lapsed/lazy gamers. Although I did say that it “feels unhealthy” to play a personality motion recreation like Zenless lazily, power of circumstance turned me from an aspiring Zhu Yuan grasp right into a hypercasual free-to-player who largely logs in to do dailies, run occasions, and see if anybody on the banner is fascinating sufficient to attempt to win the 50/50 for. Because it seems, that somebody on this preview construct was Yixuan, the banner character of model 2.0 and somebody that protagonists Belle and Sensible tackle as “Yixuan Shifu,” indicating that she turns into their martial arts coach of kinds.
Not that I might essentially know what that is all about. As a lapsed/lazy participant, I am really about two updates behind on the primary story, and never having watched the current promotional movies, am thus lacking a lot of the context detailing Belle and Sensible coming underneath Yixuan’s wing. It additionally did not assist that the preview construct we got had mainly changed all of model 2.0’s cutscenes and dialogue with placeholder textual content and silent voiceover, presumably to stop pre-release spoilers from leaking. Although the replace itself must be stay by the point of this text’s publication, I used to be left with little inkling as to what the characters had been doing and why past the generalized sense that 2.0 represents a brand new story arc for the duo behind Phaeton.
I might no less than say the place they had been, although: the brand-new space of Waifei Peninsula, a considerably tropical seaside area located beside the huge Lemnian Hole. Whereas New Eridu seems to be for all of the world like an city fantasy interpretation of miHoYo’s residence metropolis of Shanghai, Waifei Peninsula and its new city hub of Failume Heights jogs my memory of footage I’ve seen of the town of Chongqing, with its famed vertically-arranged city areas, with elevated trains generally working by means of occupied condominium buildings. Failume Heights is analogous, crisscrossed by cable automobiles and that includes multilayered buildings constructed proper into the aspect of a sheer cliff. In contrast to Lumina Sq. or Cheesetopia within the Outer Rim, Failume Heights is a real hub space, full with dwelling quarters for Phaeton at a quaintly conventional temple, its stereotypically Chinese language aesthetic an ideal match for the martial arts-inflected outfits one can earn for beginning the occasion.
If Waifei Peninsula represents the positioning of a brand new story arc for Zenless, the Lemnian Hole can be a brand new strategy to the sport’s tackle exploration, a facet Zenless has traditionally struggled to make broadly interesting. Earlier updates targeted a lot of this exploration within the recreation’s distinctive, summary “TV mode,” however over time miHoYo has steadily pared again its involvement in response to participant complaints. From what I noticed of two.0, TV mode is barely current, with exploration of the Lemnian Hole coming throughout like a refined model of the extra conventional sequences and conventionally rendered areas of earlier updates. Moderately than trying like retreads of battle phases, the exploration environments are bigger and embody checkpoints, bespoke challenges, and even switching between a number of events, making them really feel extra pure (although nonetheless paling compared to the wide-open areas of Genshin Impression).
In the meantime, Yixuan additionally appears like a brand new step ahead in growing complexity for character fight in Zenless. Constructing on the character-specific mechanics launched with Brokers like Miyabi and Evelyn, Yixuan has her personal distinctive elemental attribute, Auric Ink (which mainly a twist on Ether), and emphasizes a brand new damage-influencing issue referred to as “Sheer Power,” a harm kind that ignores enemy protection rankings. She additionally has a novel useful resource referred to as Adrenaline, and even has two distinct Final Assaults and EX Heavy assaults. To tug a comparability to Honkai Star Rail, her addition feels as vital as Acheron’s was by way of introducign what seems to be just like the groundwork for a brand new means to consider get together and fight dynamics in-game. Whereas I did not get a lot time with the opposite new S-Rank Agent, Ju Fufu, my occasional play along with her within the story phases delivered to thoughts a zippy character like Nekomata, besides with a larger emphasis on mixture Bodily and Hearth harm.
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Whereas I do not suppose model 2.0 will fairly convey again gamers who’ve fallen out of affection with Zenless Zone Zero (particularly not those sad with the paring again of TV mode), the brand new environments and characters do add a welcome change of surroundings that is likely to be sufficient to persuade current gamers to interact a bit extra deeply and be a part of Phaeton for a brand new stage within the city fantasy journey.
Zenless Zone Zero is on the market on PS5, Xbox Sequence X|S, PC, and cellular platforms. Model 2.0 is stay.
