Zenless Zone Zero Lore Explained: Factions, Hollows, and Key Plot Points
Zenless Zone Zero takes place in New Eridu, the last human city to survive cataclysmic Hollow disasters, reality-warping spheres that swallow parts of the world and spawn Ether-fueled monsters called Ethereals. Humanity survives by harvesting Ether from Hollows, even as that same power threatens to corrupt people, technology, and the city’s politics.
Hollows, Ether, and Proxies
Hollows are shell-like pocket dimensions where space-time is distorted, normal physics breaks, and Ether energy saturates everything, turning wildlife, machines, and even people into Ethereals. Entering a Hollow exposes intruders to Ether corruption that can cause mutations, possession, or death, but collapsing Hollows yields vital Ether resources New Eridu depends on.
Proxies are legendary navigators who can interface with Hollow tech and networks to guide agents remotely, letting clients take on Hollow commissions while the Proxy handles intel, routing, and extraction from a safe vantage point. The player controls siblings Wise and Belle, Proxies who run the random-play video store Phaethon, using a super‑AI called Fairy and the Proxy Network to coordinate Hollow raids.
Major Factions in New Eridu
Every playable agent, Bangboo, and many NPCs belong to a faction that represents a slice of New Eridu’s society and power structure.
- Cunning Hares (Gentle House): An under‑the‑table “human resource dispatch” group led by Nicole, known for espionage, infiltration, and taking any Hollow job if the price is right.
- Belobog Heavy Industries: A construction and engineering giant run by Koleda Belobog, specializing in heavy machinery, combat mechs, and custom weapons, often clashing with Cunning Hares.
- Victoria Housekeeping Co.: A cleaning/housekeeping company that doubles as a covert threat‑removal squad handling “internal affairs” in homes and corporate spaces; its members are themed around gothic and horror archetypes.
- Section 6 / CISRT / OBOLS and others: Official security forces like Section 6 (Hollow Special Operations) and the Criminal Investigation Special Response Team respond to major Hollow incidents and internal threats, while smaller squads like OBOLS and Sons of Calydon fill niche roles in the city’s defense and black‑ops ecosystem.
These factions cooperate and compete over contracts, tech, and political influence, and the main story often forces them into uneasy alliances inside dangerous Hollows.
Key Plot Points and Conspiracies
The core story begins long after the fall of Old Eridu, when the city’s leaders tried, and failed, to control a prime Hollow called Hollow Zero by detonating Shiyu Pillars, an event that marked the beginning of civilization’s collapse. Survivors eventually founded New Eridu around Hollow technology, but the same power that saved them seeded corruption, corporate overreach, and secret experiments.
Wise and Belle’s early commissions uncover that their adoptive mother, scientist Carole Arna, was scapegoated for Old Eridu’s fall, while real culprits within New Eridu’s command structure manipulated Hollow disasters for bioweapons and AI projects like “Sacrifice.” The siblings work with Nicole’s Cunning Hares, Section 6’s Miyabi, and other factions to expose Deputy Commander Bringer and Sarah, who plan to weaponize Miyabi using the Tailless spirit in her sword and ascend into a monstrous Sacrifice through Hollow rituals.
In later arcs, these confrontations inside Hollows reveal that some weapons and entities (Tailless, sentient gear) blur the line between AI, ghosts, and corrupted Ether, hinting that New Eridu’s survival may rest on bargains with forces it barely understands. The unresolved threads around Fairy, the origins of Hollow Zero, and the true nature of Proxies set up future storylines where the city’s last sanctuary could become either a beacon of controlled Ether or the seed of another civilization-ending disaster.
