Zenless Zone Zero’s 2000s nostalgia is taking me back to simpler times

I’ve been playing Zenless Zone Zero for two weeks now — I downloaded it the day before the Fourth of July — and I’m already enjoying it more than Genshin Impact. The combat mechanics are seamless, its cutscenes feel like they were pulled from a manga, and it’s got more substantial writing than its Genshin counterpart (its eccentric cast of heroes is stuck together like glue!). Deep into my playthrough, my boyfriend of eight years inquired something about the game’s aesthetics that I didn’t consider until he asked: “Have we reached the point where video games are catering to 2000s nostalgia?”

I’ve seen Hot Topic and Walmart selling graphic T-shirts based on Bratz, Invader Zim, Inuyasha, Lilo & Stitch, and The Powerpuff Girls (the original, not its 2016 reboot) to Millennials and Gen Z folks who grew up in the 2000s, such as myself. That nostalgia has permitted me to publicly express my youthfulness through my clothes well past age 30. A video game that bears the aesthetics of that decade, though? That’s been a rarity.

Society has brought 2000s pop culture out of the woodwork as of late, from fashion to music to even tech like the Motorola Razr Plus, a hybrid touchscreen flip phone that Paris Hilton thinks is hot. Zenless Zone Zero is filled to the brim with 2000s nostalgia, and that’s part of what makes it one of this summer’s hottest games.

Blast from the past

Zenless Zone Zero has the look and feel of a futuristic postapocalyptic landscape thanks to its Ethereals emerging from the Hollows to decimate most of humanity before the game’s events. New Eridu, the city built by survivors of the Ethereal purge where most of the game takes place, adopts a retro aesthetic that takes players back to the 2000s (despite some robots running a few businesses).

That noughties aesthetic is not without some holdovers from the 1990s. Random Play, the rental video store run by the game’s protagonists Belle and Wise, is the HoYoverse version of Blockbuster. Belle or Wise, depending on