10 Reasons Why ZZZ Is Now My Favorite Gacha

Zenless Zone Zero's patch 2.5 just came out, and this made me realize that this game should be my main gacha focus in 2026 for many, many reason. Let's explore them together.

1) New 100% Rerun Banners

100% chance of obtaining the first 5-star of the banner in a Hoyoverse game is something I've never heard about. Zenless Zone Zero brings this to the table, and not on characters that you may have zero interest on: on the other hand, we're talking top-notch meta characters, like Astra, and beloved ones, like Soldier 0: Anby.

If this becomes a permanent channel, or even a recurring one, Zenless Zone Zero will be in the best spot a Hoyoverse game has ever been when it comes to character access in its entire history.

2) Void Hunter & Idols

The new Void Hunter even crazier than Miyabi, dealing damage while ignoring the bosses' combos, and dealing stun damage even outside stun windows for insane numbers, with an over-the-top set of animations: for sure, Ye Shunguang powercreeps the entire game.

Having her team's best-in-slot support in Zhao, though, makes building her team easier. For the stunner slot, even if Dylalin, that has just been run before her, is her best, other options still make her go extremely well: Ju Fufu is a good synergy, and even Nicole has a nice spot, in case the account is still new, or is built for other archetypes.

And with that, I think this will be the most expensive time to be a ZZZ player for me. I've been waiting for these jPop-themed characters for so long, that I ended up building an entire new archetype just before they were announced. It'll be tough to pull for them just after Ye Shunguang, but this will be one of the reasons why ZZZ will be my main gacha for now onwards, and for a good amount of time.

3) Free S-Rank Meta Support: Zhao

There is so much more than a free character, but it's, for sure, one of the elements that made Zenless Zone Zero's 2.5 patch revolutionary for the game.

Zhao is an S-Rank support that just needs to pop her skill every 40 seconds to provide the team she supports with a wonderful ATK buff. That's really everything you need to know about her, if you want to play her in the meta: free support that provides strong buffs with one single button press every 40 seconds.

It's worth noticing that building her requires extremely low effort, both in terms of premium and non-premium resources, and luck:

• She doesn't need her signature weapon: the free, craftable one is good enough for her

• She doesn't need a specific Disc Drive set: even 2/2/2 mini-sets do the trick. HP% is the favored stat, and it's also easier to find as a main and substat.

• She doesn't even need skill level ups, besides her core, which means: less early stamina investment.

She is really a wonderful way to introduce the main dish of the patch, but we'll talk about her later.

There's much more to Zhao as a character, too: besides being a relevant story character, her animation kit as a sub DPS is very engaging. You won't be using it in time trials, unless you're up for a challenge or don't mind sub-optimizing, but it's extremely fun in casual content. To my eyes, her big sword has Monster Hunter's greatsword vibes when it comes to pure animation and on-hit feeling. I love when a team provides me with multiple ways to fight, besides the optimized rotation.

4) Battle Pass & BP Upgrade

Maybe some of us just clicked through, enthused by the new Void Hunter we'll be for sure talking about in a moment, but this is probably one of the best news for ZZZ players that are light spenders and want to play the game in a healthy way: the Battle Pass now provides the players with 1480 Polychromes. Let's first see the minor changes:

• Free limited pulls were converted into Polychromes: not a major change, it's just a bit more flexible if you want to use your Polys elsewhere

• The 680 polychromes you got at level 50 have been anticipated: this makes it less risky for players that may not end up completing the battle pass

• The namecard is now in the base pass: minor flavor item, but some of you may appreciate having freebies.

With that in mind, there are two much more relevant changes that come from a similar recent decision made in Honkai: Star Rail - but much more early in the game's life cycle:

• W-Engine Microcontroller: 4 of those, and you are able to claim an S-Rank W-Engine between the base one, or, one among the signature Qingyi's, Jane's, or Burnice's - with the chance more get added in the future. Much like Star Rail's Light Cone special material, this allows any light spender to slowly build a very strong alternative to signature S-Rank engines for a decent amount of Agents.

• Resonating Core: and we finally have the substat picker! This limits the amount of randomness you have from drive discs of your key main DPS characters by a very good amount, with time passing. You are able to pick up to two for each calibration, creating a piece with desired main stat and two of the four substats. Good luck with your very precious piece from there onwards!

• While MAXI, the paid Battle Pass upgrade, still comes at a premium price of double the amount of the base one, it finally provides some relevant extra, getting another copy of W-Engine Microcontroller and one extra Resonating Core. 1/4 of a 5 star weapon isn't something I'd scoff at, and more flexibility for discs is fun for minmaxer at this price tier.

• At its premium price, the upgrade also includes UI customization for the new menu (see below), in the form of base + pendant. It's a really cute extra non-crucial collectible that I like to see distributed like this.

• You also get 208 extra polychromes! That's it, they just want to make the number look lucky on this.

All around, a really nice Battle Pass upgrade: now it feels much more worth getting, especially in its premium version. Having those extra 10 levels makes it easier for players that don't have enough time to complete it by just playing, but it feels less of a FOMO shortcut, now that some limited items are in it. I just wish they ran them in a shop to be obtain by a premium price regardless, as I don't like unrecoverable items.

5) Character Buff System: Potential Vision

Last but not least, we're getting buffs on many old characters, like Soldier 11, Burnice, and, and Soldier 0: Anby, with a new system that streamlines buffs and adds a non-paid collectible extra resource to buy them.

6) Paid Extra Rewards

By spending money on premium currency, Hoyoverse rewards the players with an extra S-Rank W-Engine, and a character selector that, besides the base characters, also includes Jane Doe and Burnice. On top of that, by getting to the hefty amount of 15000 tickets, they give away some extra customization for the profile and menu.

While this specifically can be a punch in the face for collectors that didn't want to spend that much in a patch cycle time, this event is actually just an extra. Getting an extra fitted characters while spending in one of the most prolific patches Hoyoverse had is, from my point of view, a really good extra for spenders, that get guaranteed rewards besides the difficult situation of flipping coins on new characters.

There's also the possibility to save up purchased premium currency for later, so, for long-term spender players, this may just be a time to purchase resources to spend in the arc of a year, or whatever it is.

And this leads me to the final element of this article: the patch featured characters.

7) UI / QoL Upgrades

Details are what make a daily game a great game, and 2.5 delivered on that too. Since game's launch, the menu has been considered not very accessible. With this change, we now have two menu access points: the top bar, and the new "side menu". This menu includes many of the items we had to browse in the main menu of the game or use the "tab wheel", that ended up being a little hidden. There's no way to arrange or choose those from the new menu, but they show up in a very neat, customizable way.

There is now also a special option to sum up all the damage our characters deal in one big number, to avoid number overflow on the already very busy scenes: this is what Stella Sora would sorely need to make the game more playable, but hasn't implemented yet. Zenless Zone Zero didn't need it, but having it is a great plus - especially making it an option, and not a mandatory change.

8) Free Skin, and Shop Extras

A free daring skin for Jane Doe, good packs (which is rare in a Hoyoverse game), and a mini-pass also come with this version: all nice inclusions that help a bit with a patch full of charming characters.

9) Mailed Extra Rewards

When you think about the fact that a subscription is around 3000 polychromes, finding around 2000 in your mail feels very good. It's a small thing in the big scenario, but it shows the goodwill to involve players into logging in and having nice suprises at the beginning of the year.

10) Multiplayer Guilds

Multiplayer is a hot topic for ZZZ, and the game will be trying introducing it with an ad-hoc event, where players will be able to use their characters in multiplayer for the first time. Alongside with it, we first see their first iteration of what we'd call "Linkshells" in Final Fantasy XIV: themed groups where players can send messages, that are even discoverable through the interface.

What I Didn't Like Much: New Shiyu Defense

I've been hearing a lot about powercreep in endgame, and I did too, in the past. Shiyu's Defense update goes a little in that direction, removing some nodes, and making the last one harder by it requiring three teams.

While this can hit your economy a little, I think it's bad to see not completing the endgame in a Hoyoverse game as some kind of defeat, especially in 2026.

After all, it's all about how your long-term roguelike of creating a strong account with strong equip and teams is going... but that, at times, comes at the price of just having fun with the game, pulling for characters you like, and just not worrying too much about fast optimization.

While I personally don't like this change, it won't change the way I intend to play the game anyways.

There's an important note I'd like to add: while it's important to have a goal to aim for - or else, building gacha characters would be almost useless, considering you get the ones involved in the story for free for the specific aim to play the story mode - it always can be considered a long-term goal, or something to just aim for, and not necessarily need.

Conclusions

Regardless of powercreep, the game is in its most prolific state: patch 2.5 is what I've been waiting for a long, long time, to finally choose ZZZ as my main gacha. I wish chain attacks were completely optional, instead of still triggering in manual mode, and other minor tweaks, but the game overall looks extremely promising, and I'll be very happy to cover news, design, and casual talk about one of the most charming action RPG games I've played.