Zenless Zone Zero 2.5 throws everything at players — free S-rank, co-op, and a gacha safety net

Why Zenless Zone Zero 2.5 actually matters – and why you should care

If you dropped Zenless Zone Zero after the first few months, patch 2.5 is the kind of comeback bait that’s hard to ignore. Hoyoverse is clearly trying to shove ZZZ closer to the mainstream spotlight its older siblings enjoy, and they aren’t doing it with just a new chapter or a lone skin. Dec. 30’s update bundles a free S-rank agent, a Void Hunter, the game’s first proper co-op mode, a safety valve on rerun banners, plus a pile of quality-of-life and balance changes – the kind of suite that actually changes how you play and spend.

• Free S-rank Zhao for logging in (plus upgrade mats to 40)
• New Void Hunter Ye Shunguang joins banners; Jane Doe “Nocturne of Light” skin is free during 2.5
• “Exclusive rescreening” rerun banner guarantees your chosen S-rank on your first S-roll – no 50/50
• First co-op combat: Joint Investigation, Drive Disc tuning, character buffs, UI and combat-display improvements

Breaking down what actually changes for players

The headline grabber: Zhao is free simply for logging in during the patch, with enough materials to push her to level 40. That alone is a huge carrot — free S-ranks are rare currency in gacha land and it lowers the barrier for returning players. Then there’s Ye Shunguang, the latest Void Hunter. In ZZZ terms, Void Hunters are big-ticket characters with outsized mechanical importance, so adding one alongside a free S-rank is a real power shake-up.

But the part I actually cheered for was Hoyoverse acknowledging the worst part of gacha pulls: the 50/50 heartbreak. The “exclusive rescreening” banner in the back half of 2.5 bundles three reruns (Alice, Soldier 0 Anby, Astra Yao) and lets you pick which to focus. Your first S-rank drop from that rerun is guaranteed to be the agent you chose. No coin flip. No soul-crushing loss after dumping pity. That’s a practical, player-forward change that should reduce FOMO and encourage people to chase reruns without the gut punch.

Co-op, systems tweaks, and the grind economy

The new Joint Investigation mode is ZZZ’s first real co-op combat experiment. Each player controls one agent, you can revive allies mid-fight, and there are emotes for basic comms. It’s not full-blown raid complexity, but it opens the door to new tactics and the social play Hoyoverse has leaned into with Genshin and Star Rail. Expect cheesing, coordinated combos, and maybe the first meta teams built around a human partner rather than AI.

Under the hood, Drive Disc tuning now lets you target sub-stats — a small but meaningful QoL change for min-maxers chasing one last stat roll. Damage numbers are cleaned up and you can toggle a total-output overlay for skills, which makes parsing performance less of a guessing game. Shiyu Defense gets reworked into a consistent five-stage format, Deadly Assault adds a squad-building guide, and there are targeted character “power up” buffs for Burnice, Grace, Soldier 11, Ellen, and Soldier-0 Anby.

Economy and monetization — generous freebies, and a thinly veiled spend option

Hoyoverse hands out a surprisingly generous login package: 10 Encrypted Master Tape, 1,000 Polychrome, 10 Boopons, plus roughly 800 Polychrome from prereg and early events. There’s also a paid “Filmgoer thank-you gift” that lets you select an S-rank from a broad list (including Burnice, Jane Doe, and Qingyi) and tosses a W-Engine on top. It’s a predictable nudge: give players enough freebies to feel good, then offer a paid shortcut for the rest.

Why this feels like Hoyoverse getting serious about ZZZ

Hoyoverse has a history of using generous goodwill gestures to catalyze engagement — think crossover-level drops in Genshin and early free-rolls in Honkai. With 2.5 they’re applying the same playbook: free high-value content, QoL fixes, and a less-predatory rerun option to lower the entry cost. That’s smart. It addresses both the casual re-entry problem and the hardcore’s desire for reliability when chasing meta characters.

That said, there are unanswered questions. Will the Void Hunter and the buffs exacerbate late-game bloat where only one or two compositions rule every challenge? Is co-op going to be a fun social mode or a grind multiplier for whales? Hoyoverse needs to balance power creep with accessible design, and 2.5 is the first big stress test I’d expect them to fail or pass visibly.

TL;DR

Zenless Zone Zero 2.5 (Dec. 30) is the best “come back now” package we’ve seen from Hoyoverse for ZZZ: a free S-rank Zhao, a major new Void Hunter, the first co-op mode, a rerun banner that guarantees your pick on the first S-roll, plus Drive Disc tuning and useful QoL improvements. It’s equal parts player-friendly and strategically designed to hook you back in — and it raises the stakes for balance in the months ahead.