Zenless Zone Zero, the new game from the maker of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, has launched worldwide.
It has claimed 40m+ pre-registrations in the run-up to launch, and is topping games charts all over the world. It’s another grand gacha-RPG with sky-high production values from the master of the category.
But in releasing a third similar title in a few years, Hoyoverse is in danger of preaching to the converted rather than expanding its reach.
As we’ve reported previously, Hoyoverse followed up its blockbuster hit Genshin Impact with Honkai: Star Rail, another monster smash. But it soon became clear that despite quickly reaching $1bn in revenue, much of that cash came from Genshin Impact players.
Though it has a more sci-fi look and feel, Zenless Zone Zero is another gacha-RPG with very similar mechanics and monetisation to Hoyoverse’s other two smash titles. And that’s a problem, says game design consultant Tom Froud.
“It’s definitely going to cannibalise,” he tells us. “For such content and feature heavy games their reasoning for making another one eludes me.”
“It could be about cornering the market, but I don’t think that market is easily cornered – core RPG players who care about collection, status and progression are vocal, easily pissed off, and arguably less loyal.”
“Maybe they expect them to just move around their ecosystem if they have enough offerings, so lean on Hoyoverse brand loyalty rather than individual game loyalty, kinda like Blizzard used to have in the core PC space – if you got pissed off with WoW you played Diablo for a bit,” Froud continues.
“Maybe they just want to expand as much as possible whilst they can – lots of revenue and happy shareholders – hoping that their dominance will become a self fulfilling prophecy?”
Game design consultant Jakub Remiar agrees that ZZZ could have a tougher time making a long-term impact than Genshin or Star Rail, and not just because of Hoyoverse’s own existing games.
“Mihoyo is definitely trying to broaden the audience with the theme and the character design of the game, but it will probably still be an uphill battle,” Remiar tells us. “Usually releasing these heavy gacha RPG games has diminishing returns, as because of its daily session intensity you play only one at a time. This is not your usual Gardenscapes-Homescapes scenario where if you run out of lives in one game you fire up the second one.”
“It actually launches into a pretty hot anime games summer,” Remiar continues. “Solo Leveling: Arise from Netmarble and Wuthering Waves from Kuro Games launched in May and both games have already passed $60m revenue just on mobile.”
“Overall Mihoyo’s portfolio is also not looking good as Genshin is declining and Honkai is stable. They are making the same revenue with two games instead of one. In May Genshin actually grossed around $40m on mobile which was its lowest revenue ever, based on Sensor Tower data – this could be affected by the other two anime RPGs launching in the same month.”
“I really hope that I am mistaken here, but I think because of all these internal pressures from Mihoyo’s own portfolio and external pressures from other anime based RPGs on the market, it could end up being the smallest game in the portfolio in the long run,” Remiar adds. “It will definitely spike in revenue this month and maybe even overtake one of its other games, but long term success is questionable.”
Remiar also notes that ZZZ’s monetization looks “even lighter” than its contemporaries Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, due its slightly more gentle character upgrade system. Naavik’s Harshal Karvande agrees, describing ZZZ’s gacha system as “more generous” than its stablemates, though its shop and banner system is the same as those other titles.
“Players can spend real money for rolls in a slot machine for a chance to acquire the rarest characters and weapons, which are needed to clear endgame content,” says Karvande. “Every three weeks, a new banner – slot machine – is added to the shop featuring new, limited-time items with higher drop rates. Once the three weeks are over, these items are added to the standard banner and the cycle continues with new banners.”
ZZZ’s character progression is a touch more generous, though. “Players need fewer five star items to max out their teams, which takes fewer pulls on the gacha banners to complete,” explains Karvande. “This is doubly true since the odds of receiving five star items has risen compared to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.”
This relative generosity “may hurt ZZZ’s relative monetisation over the long term”, says Karvande, who also notes that there’s a soft currency-only gacha system in the game too, a feature designed to make “progression faster and stickier”.
He also agrees with our other experts that Hoyoverse risks cannibalisation with the release of its third gacha-RPG in recent years. “With ZZZ’s release, Hoyoverse is further flexing its long term dominance in its genre of gacha RPGs,” adds Karvande.
“As we saw with Honkai: Star Rail’s launch, there was decent cannibalisation across the company’s games, and if that’s the case again here, there might be a impact on what the biggest spenders end up contributing compared to the past.”
