When HoYoverse launched Zenless Zone Zero, the studio made a deliberate break from its own playbook. Gone were the sweeping orchestral arrangements that defined previous titles. In their place: funk, acid jazz, EDM, lo-fi beats, and the raw pulse of club culture.
The architect behind this sonic pivot is Yang Wutao, lead of Sān-Z Studio, a collective of producers and composers operating less like traditional game music makers and more like late-night crate-diggers hunting for the perfect sound. Their philosophy is simple but uncompromising: emotion first, genre second. Raw feeling, not industry trends.
The result has resonated far beyond gaming circles. When Zenless Zone Zero hosted live events at Creamfields in the UK, ZZZ FES in China, and ZLive festivals across Japan and the US, crowds responded not to flashy stage production but to the music itself. Electronic music, by its nature, creates a zone where listeners don't need to understand what they're hearing, only feel it.
"Music exists to express emotion, otherwise it's just sound," Yang explained in a recent interview. The character-specific EPs that anchor the soundtrack weren't selected through a genre checklist. Instead, the team dug into each character's inner life, asking not what musical style was trending but what emotional truth needed telling. When developing Burnice's theme, wildness and energy pointed naturally toward EDM's explosive foundation. For Caesar, a seemingly tough exterior hiding genuine sensitivity underneath informed a completely different sonic direction.
This approach extended to New Eridu's two distinct sonic worlds. Sixth Street's chill, lo-fi atmosphere and the Hollows' high-stakes combat required completely different electronic sub-genres, but both emerged organically from what each location needed to convey emotionally. The team didn't engineer cohesion through rigid rules; it happened naturally because everyone shared the same visual and cultural references, the same instincts, the same taste in music and aesthetics.
"We're New Eridu residents ourselves," Yang said. "Just a group of close friends working different jobs." The music, art, and UI teams existed outside the game as well, gravitating toward the same street culture, retro-futurism, and downtown energy that defines the game's world. Understanding the atmosphere required no conscious study because they already lived inside it.
The collaboration with global electronic icons like Tiësto felt like a natural extension rather than a calculated marketing move. Electronic music didn't shape Zenless Zone Zero so much as a group of like-minded creators came together and produced something that reflected who they already were.
Combat music operates under a single core directive: the music has to be alive. While the foundational electronic style was established early, individual musicians are encouraged to bring their own personality, taste, and life experiences to each track. Hugo's combat theme, for instance, shifts sharply into rock and metal territory, sounding nothing like the main storyline's electronic foundation. Yet it works because it carries authentic personality.
Character EPs receive the team's highest standard of craft. While the game contains hundreds of utility tracks serving specific scenes, the character music is held to a different measure entirely. The distinction matters because Sān-Z Studio harbors an ambition that extends beyond gaming audiences. If someone who has never played Zenless Zone Zero, or who has no connection to the gaming world at all, hears this music and loves it purely on its own terms, that represents the ultimate validation.
The retro-future aesthetic permeating New Eridu, with its VHS tapes, CRT monitors, and vinyl records, influenced not production technique but feeling and impulse. The team's members span different generations, each carrying their own relationship with "retro." Someone might hear lo-fi hip-hop; another thinks of jazz or bossa nova; a third conjures 90s anime. That generational spread created richness rather than flatness, layering multiple sonic memories into something that felt authentically retro-future.
With a physical vinyl release scheduled through Laced Records, the music now exists in the analog format that mirrors the game's own aesthetic obsessions. Players can take New Eridu home, spinning the record on equipment that echoes the very retro-tech symbolism embedded in the game's world.
Collaboration with major electronic producers, live festival appearances, and the enthusiastic response to character-specific EPs all proved that the team's instinct to reject orchestral convention was sound. The industry trend toward sweeping symphonic soundtracks made the alternative approach feel riskier, but Sān-Z Studio had the creative freedom to run with it.
Author Emily Chen: "Zenless Zone Zero's music doesn't just sit under gameplay, it defines what the game is, and that's exactly how soundtracks should work."
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