Zenless Zone Zero review: painfully cool animation can’t save a superficial gacha

Zoning out

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hoyoverse

• Developer: HoYoverse
• Publisher: HoYoverse
• Release: July 4th
• On: Windows
• From: Developer website , Epic Games Store
• Price: Free-to-play
• Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10

Many years ago game designers advised their peers to make their prototypes “juicy” . They were talking about the nebulous collection of sensations a player is exposed to when heads explode, coins jangle, and balls bounce. Zenless Zone Zero is a game deeply informed by the philosophy of juice. Like the lootbox hawkers of yesteryear, gacha designers understand the appeal and power of a pleasingly animated gizmo, ker-chunking open and fizzing with potential. This poppy visual and sonic language stretches across Hoyo’s latest game, from its cinematic moments, to each character’s attacks, to the cute bunny mascots that erupt into gatling guns, to the barista’s coffee-making ritual and the recipes of the robo-limbed noodle server. The menu screens, the maps, the free-to-play storefront, everything. It is all very juicy. It is pumped with juice, but only in the same way supermarket chicken is pumped with water.

The sci-fi city of New Eridu is beset by giant domes of harmful matter that swell out over whole districts, displacing citizens, creating monsters, and making parts of the city impassable. Impassable, that is, except for your crew of three raiders, who dip into these harmful “Hollows” to perform various favours for those on the outside. You might save some trapped residents, find a lost hierloom, or search for a missing delivery driver. What this looks like (beyond the disjointed and overlong tutorial) is a third-person character action brawler attached to a grid-based exploration minigame with some very mild sokoban puzzles, all wrapped up in a chunky free-to-play vending machine of characters and upgrade candy.

The character action battles are as cool-looking as anything in the genre. When my giant bear construction worker slams down his huge pneumatic tool on an enemy’s head, it feels impactful, ground-shaking. When the cyborg gunslinger pirouettes through a trio of glowing monsters firing off a scattering of shots with the satisfying crackle of popcorn in a microwave, it is undeniably sick, rad, and gnarly. At special moments you can switch characters to perform smoothly violent transitional combos. Countering an incoming enemy attack (communicated by the flashing wink of a cross) erupts into a character-swapping moment of camera-twirling mega-action. Every fight unfolds with stylishly choreographed efficacy, as you pair new characters to see what custom combinations might look sweet as heck.

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Unfortunately, most of your time is not really spent fighting. At least, not in the story mode of the early game. And even later, when more time becomes devoted to brawls, it turns out that too much “cool” can actually be pretty exhausting. When you put aside how good it looks, combat can basically be reduced to hammering the same four or five buttons in a cycle without a huge demand for strategy. There isn’t much depth to the fights, it is slick and superficial, and full of suave enemies that often move as swaggerfully as your own characters, yet don’t distinguish themselves from one another in any mechanically meaningful way. So what is the game, if it isn’t the fighting? To steal an old question , where does the game reside?

Well, much of it resides in going from menu to menu, clearing red exclams from the corners of tab headings. This is a kind of sweeping up process that involves clicking “claim” everywhere you can find it to hoover up various currencies with names my brain has simply rejected upon hearing. Some of the game resides in searching the internet or YouTube for explanations to the opaque systems that will let you modify this do-hickey, or bonusify that character. Still more resides in a rotating gameshow carousel of TV screens where the spoils of your gachapon lever-pulling are revealed. Spoon all that grease off the top and you’re left with a stylish but straightforward combat arena, entered on repeat, framed within a series of undemanding 2D mazes.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hoyoverse

It doesn’t help that you’re fighting in what feels like the same few spaces over and over again. For all the stylishness of the world, there is remarkably little of it to explore. The most enjoyable environment is the city block where you do errands (more on that later). But as neat as the visual splendour of that zone is, it doesn’t make up for the boxy, uninteresting, and short-lived arenas in which you fight. It seems a pity that a game with such graceful character animations is confined to having the characters traverse the same few spaces of a de-constructed railway yard for hours.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hoyoverse

Yet ultimately, my time in the Zenless Zone (Zero) has left me feeling uninspired. The tutorial treadmill is long and everything in the plot is ten times more convoluted than it really needs to be. There are a lot of easy-to-miss details and menu cul-de-sacs where yet more loot can be claimed. In a non-free-to-play game the design solution to this might be to consolidate all the claimable loot into one place. But for whatever reason that is not psychologically compatible with the gacha. So the result is dozens of small tutorials that interrupt to show you which series of tabs and icons to click to find the tiny claimable puddle of gachagoo in the corner, an overbearing barrage of “learn this, open that menu, press that button, okay now this one”. It’s a bit like getting step-by-step unboxing instructions from a really fussy drug dealer.

It also comes with all the usual linguistic obfuscation of meaning , the myriad currencies, the bits, bobs, and baubles required to upgrade characters and equipment. For those who understand the grammar of the gacha game, it’s only a matter of learning a new vocabulary. For anyone simply lured in by bright characters and scenes of a happy-go-lucky cyberpunk world, perhaps looking for satisfying third-person combat, it’s less welcoming. Simply exploring and comprehending the wild maze of menu screens takes more time than learning the basics of the action. This is not necessarily the death knell for a video game. Plenty of great games are all menu, all the time. But it is, for me, the tell-tale sign of an uninteresting third-person action game, no matter how visually or audibly stylish it might be.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hoyoverse

When the term “juice” (or “game feel” as it’s more ofen called today) was casually coined, it was offered as a reminder to make games pleasing in the hands and eyes and ears of players, so that the player might become more present, more grounded, even in an unreal space. Zenless Zone Zero uses these same principles to encourage the player to live too often in a menu screen. To me it feels like a deeply superficial world. A really cool pair of shoes that sit around in your home, looking great yet going unused because they are uncomfortable and impractical to actually wear.

Find out how we conduct our reviews by reading our review policy .

Zenless Zone Zero

Android , iOS , PS5 , PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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