So, how do I know ZZZ?#

I’ve played Zenless Zone Zero for a very long time, since around 1.2, and I’ve had a lot of fun with it. I’ve dabbled a bit with gacha games in the past, Genshin during the pandemic and HSR a few months after launch, but neither clicked with me, so I stopped paying attention to that genre of games. ZZZ is a different style compared to many other gacha games, focusing more on combat and flashiness than any other gacha game that I’d seen up to that point, so I quickly sunk my teeth in, and 1.5 years later, I can say that it’s a pretty fun game to play, albeit the gacha aspect makes me not want to recommend this game to others casually.

The Steam Beta Announcement#

On April 24, ZZZ announced that it would be coming to Steam, which was a big surprise since the only ways to install it on PC were through Hoyoplay (their own launcher), or… Epic Games Launcher. Choosing the Epic Launcher first doesn’t make much sense until you realize that the other Hoyo games are also on Epic, including HSR and Genshin.

Zenless Zone Zero is officially coming to Steam, and the Steam Store page is now live!

Add to Wishlist Now: https://t.co/cKMdYxNH73
The Steam version of Zenless Zone Zero only supports America, Europe, Asia, and TW/HK/MO servers.

Sign-ups for the Steam Advance Testing are now… pic.twitter.com/0UmjMlRyo2

— Zenless Zone Zero (@ZZZ_EN) April 24, 2026

Honkai Impact 3rd has been on Steam for almost 5 years, but considering that sort of fell to the wayside after Genshin Impact came out, I’m not too surprised that it ended up on Steam to be maintained slowly.

I have spent a lot of time and money on Steam, so I signed up for the beta. It’d be nice to have 1 less game I need to add as a non-Steam game, and it’d allow me to make Steam Input less of a hassle with my Switch Pro controller. It wasn’t impossible before, just a bit more finnicky to get everything working together, especially over Bluetooth. After signing up for the beta, a couple of weeks later I got an email inviting me to join a Discord server, where we’d get more info.

The Actual Game Client#

After a few days of literally nothing, which was kind of weird, I got another email giving me a code to redeem on Steam, allowing me to finally download the game on Steam.

NOTE

For some reason the download went really slow after this screenshot, so I had to wait the whole night to try it out. I’m assuming it’s because a lot of people were downloading it at the same time, so expect something similar when the actual release (probably for 3.0) comes out.

Once I finally downloaded the game, was there anything new? Well no, you’d be pleasantly unsurprised. The Steam version of ZZZ even opens up a stripped-down Hoyoplay client before you can even open the game, which is probably some legacy code that they didn’t want to break.

TIP

You can skip the Hoyoplay launcher and jump straight into the game by pasting this command into the launch options for ZZZ:

“D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Zenless Zone Zero\games\ZenlessZoneZero Game\ZenlessZoneZero.exe” %command%

(Take note to change the directory to where ZZZ is actually located on your computer)
However, there is a chance you will need to remove this whenever an update drops because it’s unclear whether updates to the client will happen through Steam or the Hoyoplay client packaged in, but I’ll update this article when 3.0 drops in a few weeks.

When you actually boot in the game, you’ll be asked to link your Steam account, which takes like 2 minutes, and then you’re ready to log in!

Logging in is nothing special, I arrived right where I left off yesterday, finishing my dailies with Dialyn.

Here’s some gameplay of Hollow Zero, just to show off a bit.

Optimization is a Lost Art#

Ok, that header is an exaggeration, but I needed something to segue into the next part of this post. Below is some gameplay of the Steam version right after I booted up the game and went into the first combat experience of that session.

This happens basically every time I start up the game, and while my hardware isn’t the strongest, there’s no reason why shader compiling can’t happen in the background instead of during battle, causing these bad lag spikes. It’s the main reason I’m a bit worried about ZZZ being exposed to a larger audience on Steam; the optimization since 2.0 has started to take a backseat, probably because the Hollow exploration isn’t being programmed in the best way. Considering the developers only have 6 weeks per patch, I’m unforunately not surprised optimization takes a backseat compared to adding new agents, bosses, and maps, but considering 3.0 is going to add another massive area, I hope those issues don’t become worse. Another issue I’ve noticed is that oftentimes the Steam version doesn’t automatically log in when you’re at the login screen, so you’ll have to click the screen again, or sometimes go through the whole login flow again. Also, why even open Hoyoplay at all if you’re booting up the game through Steam? Most users won’t know about launch options, so it’ll be a bit of a drag to them, and it just makes this version feel more like a back burner item rather than something that had at least a bit of thought put into it.

Conclusion#

I’m very happy to see one of my most-played games ever come onto Steam, and while some of these issues are Steam beta-specific, others have been brewing for a while, and I doubt they’ll be fixed in time for the full release, either on its own or coinciding with the release of 3.0. For now, I’m probably keeping the Steam version installed, but I do hope Hoyoverse can polish up the experience for people discovering this game for the first time, since it really is quite a unique experience compared to other gachas, and I do hope others can see that side of it.