Zenless Zone Zero Is Still Missing One Major Feature That’s Holding the Game Back

Zenless Zone Zero is one of the most mechanically unique and visually stunning gacha games released in recent years. HoYoverse’s arena-based brawler trades your typical high-fantasy magic setting for a gritty urban aesthetic one, along with combo-driven action gameplay that leans more toward character action titles, like Devil May Cry, than traditional RPGs. But despite all its polish and forward-thinking design, one glaring omission holds it back from fully realizing its potential: the lack of a proper loadout system.

Yes, this is a big deal. It might seem like a small gripe at first glance, just another item on a post-launch quality-of-life wishlist. But the longer you play Zenless Zone Zero, the more apparent the problem becomes, like a bruise that gets worse the longer you pick at it. At this point in the game’s life span, a loadout system is practically becoming a necessity. Unlike many gacha games, where the optimal build for a character is rigid and narrow, Zenless Zone Zero thrives on a surprising amount of flexibility that isn’t obvious to you as a newer player.

Whether it’s through Drive Disc combinations, W-Engine assignments, or synergistic team compositions, most characters can slot into multiple builds that serve entirely different functions. Some Agents can perform as solo DPS in one scenario and flex into support in another, simply by changing their Disc sets or investing in different sub-stats. Honestly, it’s an incredible feat that the team behind Zenless Zone Zero managed to allow players to discover this stuff organically, and it serves as yet another reason why loadouts have become needed.

The issue is that the game does absolutely nothing to support that level of experimentation, and it’s painful. Very painful. If you want to switch builds, you need to manually swap out each Drive Disc, find and assign the right W-Engine, and deal with any shared gear conflicts between characters. It’s an annoying, menu-heavy process that actively discourages creativity, especially when the rest of the game practically begs you to try new things.

This friction is far more pronounced in Zenless Zone Zero’s endgame content. As you progress into late-game challenges like Hollow Zero, Shiyu Defense, or even the hardest challenge, the Simulated Battle Tower, the value of flexible builds becomes more apparent. You often need to fine-tune your team to overcome difficult challenges in these modes, but without the ability to save loadouts, the cost of experimentation rises drastically. Instead of quickly jumping to a new idea that might just work with some additional creative elbow grease, you’re buried in menus, trying to remember which Disc you had on which Agent last week. With new Disc Sets, Agents, and W-Engines coming almost every update, the problem grows exponentially worse over time.

It’s a problem because Zenless Zone Zero’s design philosophy actively rewards experimentation. It’s one of the few games in the genre where off-meta builds can outperform so-called “optimal” ones if applied intelligently. Want to try a DPS-focused build on a Stun Agent with good damage multipliers? Want to turn a Support Agent with great natural Anomaly application into a DPS-hybrid? Go for it. The game’s sandbox welcomes it. But without loadouts, you’re forced to pay a high mental tax every time you want to make a switch.

The system, or lack thereof, actively works against the game’s best strength.

At its core, a loadout feature is pretty straightforward. Each Agent should have a handful of build slots where you can save and name your setups. These would include their assigned Drive Discs, their W-Engine, and maybe their default Bangboo companion. If you want to switch from an Anomaly-focused Burnice build to a Crit-heavy version (dubbed ‘Critnice’ by the community) for a specific team comp, it should take one tap, not ten.

Plenty of other games, both gacha and traditional, have nailed this system already. Punishing: Gray Raven, Wuthering Waves, and even smaller mobile titles often allow preset builds or loadouts, especially for content that demands quick reconfiguration. For a game that feels this slick in combat and presentation, Zenless Zone Zero’s backend management is surprisingly clunky.

As Zenless Zone Zero matures and continues to evolve, HoYoverse has an opportunity to address this problem directly. A loadout system doesn’t need to be flashy or overdesigned. It just needs to work. Even a bare-bones solution that lets us save and switch between builds would massively reduce the friction involved in gearing and unlock the full creative potential the combat system already supports. With every new Agent release and every new content drop, the meta gets more complex. That’s a good thing. But complexity should be met with tools that help players adapt, not systems that punish them for attempting to do so.

HoYoverse has nailed a lot with Zenless Zone Zero despite it being such a young title, and the development team has already shown they’re paying attention to the community with some solid updates and open communication outside the standard. But if it truly wants to support its most invested players, the ones pushing creative boundaries, crafting unique comps and Disc drive setups, then it’s time to give them the tools to do so properly.

For Zenless Zone Zero, loadouts are the missing piece in a game that’s otherwise firing on all cylinders. As it stands now, its lack of a loadout system is one of its few design missteps, and it’s one that only becomes more noticeable the longer, or more seriously, you play it.