As a gacha game, Ground Zero without Zen plans to cash in on your account by releasing a ton of really good characters that you’ll want to play. But in order to describe ZZZ as a free-to-play game with a clear conscience — and to sweeten the pot so that you’ll like the game enough to want to pay for it in the future — HoYoverse will be periodically topping up your account with free characters, especially around the all-important release of version 1.0.
Whether you want to stay F2P forever or just want to build your roster before opening your wallet, if you’re a fan of gacha games, it’s a good idea to grab all the free characters you can get. Here are all free characters in Zenless Zone Zero 1.0 and how to get it.
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Zenless Zone Zero: Which Agents Are Available for Free?
Starting characters
In true gacha tradition, Zenless Zone Zero awards you a trio of free characters who join your team during the game’s prologue missions and are with you from then on without any strings attached. This means you’ll never be without the ability to field a full team, even before you touch the gacha.
In ZZZ, your starting trio consists of three A-rank (i.e. 4-star) units from the Sly Bunnies faction: the game’s unofficial mascots Nicole Demara and her adopted ward Anby Demaraand their cyborg buddy Billy KidGood news for faction collectors, as this means you’re only one S-rank (i.e. 5-star) character away from recruiting every member of the Cunning Hares from the get-go!
Here’s a quick look at their kits:
- Nicole has the Aether attribute and the Support/Strike fighting style
- Anby has the Electric attribute and the Stun/Cut fighting style
- Canteen has a physical attribute and a fighting style of Attack/Pierce
Of particular note is that Nicole is the only Ether character available in the game at launch, and the only A-rank Ether character in v1.0. The only other character tied to the Ether attribute is Zhu Yuan, a premium S-rank character who will be released in Phase 2 of v1.0. Therefore, while all of the starting characters in ZZZ are solid choices, Nicole is a particularly good choice when it comes to investing resources when deciding who to build early on.
Pre-Registration Reward
Corin Wickes is a Physical Attack/Slash character and the only A-rank member of the Victoria Housekeeping faction. She is a bonus character unlocked at 35 million pre-registrations — which ZZZ recently surpassed — and will become available to players once they unlock the in-game mailbox.
It’s worth noting that you probably didn’t miss out on a free Corin even if you didn’t personally pre-register for Zenless Zone Zero. Previous HoYoverse releases, like Honkai: Star Rail, kept the pre-registration bonuses vigorous and available to anyone who joined the game for months or even years after launch. However, the full set of rewards doesn’t necessarily last forever — although the chances are very good that you’ll still be able to claim Corin for a long time.
Heroes
At the beginning of the game you will be asked to choose your character from the siblings, Belle and Wise.
The character you choose will become your avatar in New Eridu, but remember that unlike Genshin or HSR, Belle and Wise are NO Agents (Combat Characters):instead there are Proxies, with a slightly different purpose in the story and game.
The character you don’t choose will still be a near-constant presence in the game, as they live with the character you choose and act as the other half of the Proxy. So your decision basically determines who you want to run around town as (choose this one) and who you want to listen to for advice during Hollow missions (don’t choose this one).
Event Reward Characters
Two free heroes will be available to claim as part of Zenless Zone Zero’s version 1.0 events, but since there is currently no time limit for them, it’s entirely possible that these rewards will be available for a while to aid novel players fill out their rosters:
- Soukak can be claimed for free after starting “Chapter 2 – Intermission” of the main story, as part of the “Eridu Frontier” event.
- Ben can be claimed for free after completing the main story mission “Call Ben Bigger” in Chapter 2, as part of the “Rookie on the Road” event.
Soukak is an A-rank Agent and the only currently playable member of the Section 6 faction. She has the Ice attribute and the Support-Slash fighting style. She is potentially a bit frail in Version 1.0 due to the lack of companions to form a perfect team with, but so many early game enemies have a weakness to Ice that she is worth having around, as she is the only A-rank Agent in the game with this attribute.
Ben is also an A-rank Agent and a member of the Belobog Heavy Industries faction. He has the Fire attribute and the Defense-Strike fighting style. Ben is the only defensive character available in version 1.0, so you’ll almost certainly have a surplus of W-Engine to equip for him, plus he’s your only chance to understand how the style works for now.
Gacha pull guarantee
Unlike Genshin Impact or Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero doesn’t guarantee any specific character for completing the gacha tutorial. However, you are guaranteed an S-rank Agent after 50 pulls of the standard banner, which can be obtained for a “discount” of 8 Master Tapes per 10 pulls instead of the usual 10.
In addition, just like in Honkai: Star Rail, you will get a one-time free selection of lasting S-rank characters (choose one of: Grace, Rina, Ugly, Nekomata, Soldier 11Or Lycaon) after submitting 300 wishes on a standard banner.
What’s more, version 1.0 promises 100 free rolls to players who complete each event. While this doesn’t guarantee any specific character, it does mean you’ll earn at least one S-rank Agent or W-Engine, and you’ll have a chance to nearly complete the entire lineup of version 1.0 A-rank Agents.
As you can see, you can get a pretty solid roster of ZZZ characters without even touching the gacha. But if you decide to give it a try anyway, be sure to check out our list of Zenless Zone Zero codes to claim all the free currency you can before you start downloading.