Vinyl records, polaroid cameras, CRT TVs, and videotapes: things you wouldn’t expect to see in a game primarily aimed at younger Millennials, Zoomers, and the oldest of Gen Alpha, right? And yet, they’re found in abundance in MiHoYo ‘s online action RPG, Zenless Zone Zero. A game that I (an elder millennial) have been very much enjoying, with just shy of two weeks under my belt. (Just in time for the Burnice hype!) I went into it blind and hoo boy, I’m so glad I did as getting to know it has been one wild ride.

I Didn’t Expect to Tune into a Tube TV to Log In

This is the login screen for ZZZ. It’s cutely presented, with ever-changing television channels giving you little snippets of world-building lore and flavour while you’re logging in. But look at that; a style of TV that was already outdated when I was old enough to watch television, let alone someone in their late teens or early twenties in 2024. And a video cassette player flanked by shelves of VHS tapes, all resplendent in the abstract, vibrant geometry associated with blank video tape slipcases of the 80s and 90s?

After two weeks, I’ve surmised that Zenless Zone Zero’s world is enjoying what TV Tropes might term a “Cozy Catastrophe.” Amid the ruins of the ‘Old Civilization’ and beset by Hollows, supernatural black domes that engulf entire blocks and disgorge corrupted creatures called Ethereals, stands New Eridu; a city with an air of early 2000s trendiness that someone savvy with Japanese RPGs but not with ZZZ might mistake this snap of as one from Persona 3 Reload.

At first, I was confused; wasn’t this supposed to be a sci-fi game? I had heard it was, in stark contrast to the fantasy of another of my ‘HoYoverse’ favourites, Genshin Impact. So, uh, what’s with all the analogue dial TVs, audiocassettes, and videotapes?

Welcome to the Analogue Apocalypse

I’ve yet to find out exactly why, but it would appear that some of ZZZ’s world is undergoing a tech regression. While the military holding back the encroaching Hollows uses futuristic mechs, power armour, and flatscreen monitors, the citizens of New Eridu rent videotapes, watch live broadcast shows on their boxy CRT TVs, listen to vinyl LPs and MiniDiscs and tap away at pre-smartphone flip phones. In fact, your player hub is the local Sixth Street video rental store, Random Play. Owned and run by early twentysomething siblings Belle and Wise, one of which you choose to play at the beginning of the game.

Now, while a second vinyl record revolution has kicked off in the last ten years, anyone Belle and Wise’s age when ZZZ launched in July 2024 would struggle to recall a time when DVD and Bluray weren’t the dominant physical media formats and most folks didn’t just stream their music from Spotify and YouTube. Despite this, ZZZ immerses them in a kaleidoscopic world of tech-nostalgia and pop art vibes. All while getting the player to spend a lot of time in a type of media rental store that had almost entirely vanished before they were old enough to know what a movie even was.

It’s an initially confusing but enthralling blend of multiple generations of analogue and early digital technology that exist in a roughly early 2000s world in terms of aesthetics and overall vibe. Albeit one where CDs and DVDs never caught on and the Sony Walkman Aesthetic is king.

Old Tech, New Curiosity

Since joining BlueSky in the summer of 2023, I’ve noticed an increasing curiosity about old audio/visual technology, consoles and computers among younger folx I interact with there. And I use the term folx because a sizeable proportion (perhaps even a majority!) of them are Queer/Trans. Often Furries. I rub shoulders with people in their late teens or twenties picking up Commodore 64s, old digital or analogue cameras, CRT TVs, and MIDI equipment. They’re streaming emulated NES games a decade older than they are or getting into DOS or Windows 95 PCs and doing all kinds of crazy pixel art and TikTok video projects with old tech. All without the grounding of personal nostalgia that some of us in the retro gaming or tech communities have.

Of course, it depends on your circumstances and which part of the world you’re from; economic conditions in, for example, Brazil and Poland kept older game tech (such as Famiclones and Sega Master Systems) in common use far longer than the United States or the UK. The younger Millennial or Zoomer retro-tech enthusiasts I’ve encountered generally do not fall under that circumstance. They’re just fascinated by older tech and want to explore it.

I think it’s wonderful. It’s a purer form of tech appreciation and curiosity, free from the baggage of nostalgia that can sometimes be a wee bit of a minefield and isn’t a requirement to appreciate and enjoy old tech or games. ZZZ feels like a celebration of the new-age tech curiosity and aesthetic appreciation that may have partly inspired its own adoption of it. It revels enthusiastically in a hodgepodge of the vibes, aesthetics, and technology of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. And while flip phones remained a cultural presence for much longer in certain East Asian countries than they did here in the UK, I would wager that most of the players that ZZZ is aimed at won’t have ever used a VHS player, an audio cassette, or a film camera. Which is why I found its abundant presence so intriguing. It doesn’t feel like nostalgia bait to entice an older crowd. MiHoYo went to painstaking lengths to capture particular vibes and aesthetics in which to wrap the world of their action game and I’m curious to learn more about the reasons why.

It even has a logoless woodgrain Atari VCS on one of Belle and Wise’s tables, ready to be hooked up again to one of their many CRT TVs.

I hope you’ve got Solarfox in your collection, Belle and Wise. I’ll be right over for a game if you do.