Is Zenless Zone Zero censored?

In 2023, news began to surface about censorship in Zenless Zone Zero impacting the game’s characters and story, and fans aren’t pleased about it.

Zenless Zone Zero is a massive anime open world RPG from miHoYo, the creators of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. It follows the pattern of being very separate from every Hoyoverse game that’s come before it while remaining intrinsically connected through gacha mechanics and overarching lore. However, this game might prove to be even more varied than previous titles because of a censorship debate.

Is Zenless Zone Zero Censored?

At the time of writing, Zenless Zone Zero has been altered for overseas localization. The localization changes relate to character models, which have been altered and toned down from what some describe as oversexualized. The game’s story has also been hit with alterations, with certain scenes now containing less gore.

Players noticed this between the two Closed Beta Tests for the game by comparing gameplay and cutscenes from each. They’re not happy about it because they enjoyed the original vision and don’t feel that the game deserves to be altered.

Why is Zenless Zone Zero censored?

Zenless Zone Zero is censored because it has a 16+ age rating yet didn’t initially comply with some of the guidance for that age restriction in China, where developer miHoYo is located. The censorship allows the game to retain its 16+ age rating without moving up to an 18+ one that would restrict it to adults-only in most countries.

The danger of being a game with an adults-only rating is that you lose out on a huge potential audience. In the UK, Genshin Impact is a PEGI-12, meaning it’s open to pretty much everyone with a console or smartphone. That’s a big part of why it was such a success, and miHoYo obviously wants Zenless Zone Zero to be as successful, if not more.

Fans have expressed an interest in two different versions of the game: one with censorship and one without. However, it’s unlikely that the developer would do this because it would require a lot more work and could still mean the title misses out on adopting a large audience upon release. It would also be quite tricky to market the game since the developer would essentially need to do double the marketing but for very different audiences.

Overall, it makes more sense for miHoYo to censor the game and involve all players. While it may not be exactly what players want, it’s understandable that games change over time during development, and this is one of those changes.