Summary
Zenless Zone Zerois the latest game by HoYoverse, the creators behind bothGenshin ImpactandHonkai: Star Rail.GenshinandStar Railare ambitious enough projects in their own right. However,Zenless Zone Zerois already outdoing both games on a pretty major front.Zenless Zone Zerobrings a level of diversity with its character designs not previously seen in either game.
Genshin Impactis an open world game that focuses heavily on the theme of an international journey.Honkai: Star Railadopts a sci-fi setting where players travel between various planets. Meanwhile,Zenless Zone Zerotakes place on a smaller scale, but manages a more diverse cast despite this. Hopefully, this trend in character design will signal a change in the future characters inGenshin Impact.
Zenless Zone Zero Outdoes Genshin Impact in the Design Department
Genshin Impact Struggles with Uniform Character Designs
Zenless Zone Zeroonly launched recently, so it still features a pretty small roster. Despite this, the characters already break multiple design trends from HoYoverse’s other games.Genshin ImpactandHonkai: Star Railboth obey design rules that have remained consistent for the entirety of the respective games' lifespans. Though some of these rules are necessary, others should be subverted more often to prevent designs from feeling stagnant.
Despite its international focus,Genshin Impactfeatures a rosterthat has limited options for both body types and skin tones. Characters are organized in a limited number of model types for their designs to be constructed from, so the issue with body types is an understandable hardware issue. The lack of diversity in other departments is much more puzzling, given that characters are meant to represent a vast variety of cultures across the world.
Notably, there are also nocharacters inGenshin Impactthat don’t resemble humans. Despite the presence of some NPCs that can assume animal forms, the furthest any playable character strays from the game’s base are the occasional horns or animal ears. While this is also likely to be a matter of engine limitations and character modeling, it becomes a much more glaring issue when applied toHonkai: Star Rail.
Honkai: Star Rail’s Characters Lack Crucial Diversity
Honkai: Star Railtakes place in a sci-fi setting, following the player as they journey across several planets in space. However, the most alien designs have gotten is a handful of characters sporting fox ears. This is made particularly noticeable in contrast to some of the game’s enemy designs, which are all distinct from one another, and often robotic in nature.
Other aspects of the game’s lore allow for diversity among its roster. For example,Honkai: Star Rail’s Aeonsare essentially eldritch gods, and each of them is appropriately unique to account for this. However, despite the diversity among enemy designs, these characteristics rarely carry over to the game’s playable characters. Of course, this is not to say that none of the characters obey the game’s sci-fi setting.
Although design traits such as mechanical limbs abound, there are still exceedingly few characters who appear as anything but human. Firefly pilots a mech during combat, and Screwllum is an automaton who will soon become playable, meaningStar Railmay soon be taking its designs in a slightly bolder direction. Until that happens more concretely, though, they are simply pleasant exceptions to an otherwise firmly established rule.
Zenless Zone Zero’s Diverse Characters Break the Mold
Zenless Zone Zero is Full of Bold Character Designs
Meanwhile,Zenless Zone Zero’s charactershave already disrupted this rule significantly. One of the characters in the starting roster is named Von Lycaon, and he is a cyborg wolf-man. This concept alone is already a bolder design than the archetypes of any characters HoYoverse’s other titles. The most important factor is that Von Lycaon is by no means an outlier, designs like his are the new rule.
Von Lycaon is just one of the manybreakout characters inZenless Zone Zero. Ellen Joe is from the same faction as Von Lycaon, and sports a shark’s tail. While she is otherwise humanoid, her shark tail is certainly a larger standout in her design than animal ears often are. It’s definitely more complex to animate as well, showing the game’s dedication to chasing bold character designs.
Ben Bigger is perhaps the boldest take yet. Completely breakingGenshin Impact’s uniform body types, Ben is quite literally a giant bear. He doesn’t closely resemble any other character in the game, let alone fit the molds of their bodies or faces. Likewise, it’s difficult to even imagine how future characters would borrow from his design.
Zenless Zone Zero’s Characters Show a Clear Priority
One of the most important characters in this discussion is Billy Kidd, one of the characters most prominently featured throughout nearly the entirety of the game’s marketing since its reveal. Billy Kid features metallic body that already surpasses many ofHonkai: Star Rail’s most recent characters. More importantly, his face is entirely robotic in nature. This serves as a major statement, and is hopefully a sign of things to come.
In character design, there is often an instinct to make characters as human as possible to give them a more relatable appearance. This is likely a major reason thatGenshin ImpactandHonkai: Star Railhave not embraced their non-human designs.Genshin Impactrarely goes bold with its animal characters, andHonkai: Star Railhas yet to take full advantage of its robotic characters. However,Zenless Zone Zerois making a strong effort to do both, and this already permeates throughout its entire cast.
Zenless Zone Zero Could Inspire Change in Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail
Billy Kidd serves as an important statement because some players view him as a main protagonist of sorts, and many cues in his design certainly paint him as such. Furthermore, he is boisterous and optimistic, traits which serve to enhance his humanity despite his appearance. If HoYoverse is willing to try such an approach with one of the game’s most prominent characters, then it will surely do the same withZenless Zone Zero’s future additions.
More importantly, this could be great news forfans ofGenshin ImpactandHonkai: Star Railwho have been clamoring for a change in design philosophy.Genshin Impactstill features limited options for its designs, and whileHonkai: Star Railhas been attempting to step out of its comfort zone,Zenless Zone Zeroshows that much more is possible. Although the games are certainly built with different techniques and technology, this doesn’t mean it’s too late to change course.
Zenless Zone Zerohas already shattered expectations regarding many important aspects of character design.Zenless Zone Zerolikely couldn’t have made it this far without the success ofGenshin Impact. Thankfully, it has plenty to give back.Zenless Zone Zerois bound to continue its bold approachto character design, and this approach could hopefully improve its predecessors as well.
Zenless Zone Zero
WHERE TO PLAY
Don’t go into the Hollows.I know, I know, there’s Ether in the Hollows, bizarre creations, even heritage of the old civilization, all precious treasures. But don’t forget, there’s also spatial disorder, monsters and mutants running rampant, and ultimately, a disaster that could swallow the world. They are not a place where ordinary people should go.So don’t go into Hollows.Or at least, don’t go in alone.If you insist on getting into danger, go to New Eridu first.This city where the good and the bad mix has many people who need the Hollows: Powerful wealthy tycoons, gangs that stalk the streets, conspiracy nuts, and ruthless officials.Make your preparations there, find strong allies, and most importantly—Find a “Proxy”.Only they can guide people out of the maze-like Hollows.Good luck!
