Ever since launch, Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail have been my most played games. I deeply appreciate each game’s aesthetic, including their mix of human and non-human characters.
While Honkai Star Rail did introduce more furries than Genshin over time, for now, they’re primarily concentrated in Xianzhou Luofu. For Zenless Zone Zero, however, you’ll notice that starting roster of many factions contain at least one furry.
The most obvious one is Ben Bigger from Belobog Heavy Industries, a big, brown, badass tanky bear. Then there’s Von Lycaon, a white wolf looking smart in a suit from Victoria Housekeeping Co.
Frankly, you can’t name your faction Gentle House, AKA Cunning Hares, and not have a furry, which is why it’s home to Nekomiya Mana, a cat. Then there’s Hoshimi Miyabi from Section 6, who has two very obvious long black and pointy ears.
During the Zenless Zone Zero 1.0 livestream, HoYoverse introduced even more furries — a handsome upcoming foxy male character from the Criminal Investigation Special Response Team.
Because of just how common furries are in ZZZ despite faction lines, their presence has made a deep impression on me. During an exclusive media panel, I took the chance to find out more from producer Zhenyu Li on how the dev team came up with these extraordinary character designs.
Are there really that many furries in Zenless Zone Zero?
During the planning stages, the team drafted out many character concepts, Zhenyu shared, which had both human and non-human personas.
Ben the bear and robots, for example, were present in this early phase but were not intended to be included on the roster or go into production.
However, the team did find them “very interesting and very fun,” said Zhenyu, and they eventually decided to incorporate them while still keeping in line with their aesthetic and art style.
As there were many creatives on the team, they were very open to their inclusion and believed that ZZZ players would be able to appreciate these characters as well.
Zhenyu highlighted that human character still form the majority of the ZZZ roster, at least for now. Together, they live in the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world that is, like its characters, designed quite unconventionally.
Find out why Zenless Zone Zero completely breaks post-apocalyptic stereotypes in our article. Check out our ONE Esports article on where to play the game, including download links for each platform. Also, here is a list of all playable characters in the game.
READ MORE: All working Zenless Zone Zero codes and how to redeem them
