HoYoVerse Explains Lack of Ether Agents in Zenless Zone Zero

In an interview with Famitsu, the development team for Zenless Zone Zero explained that the lack of characters who are Ether Agents is due to how rare the element was in the in-game lore. They also explain that attributes have no bearing on a particular faction. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

According to the Zenless Zone Zero development team, they focused on common elements when deciding on what attributes they’d put in the game. “Ether” is an original and rare attribute that they created specifically for the world of Zenless Zone Zero, which is why they want to be careful of how they handle Ether Agent characters. As a result, there aren’t a lot of Ether characters in the game right now. They also stated that they would use player feedback and the game’s performance to decide on how to further explore and represent Ether.

Famitsu also asked if a faction would appear in the future that would specialize in Ether. The development team replied that while a lot more Ether Agents will appear in the future, they don’t take attribute into consideration when creating characters for a faction. If it seems like a particular group has a lot of Agents of a particular attribute, that’s likely a coincidence more than anything else.

As of the time of writing, there are twenty-eight playable characters in the game (barring the Proxies). Of these characters, only three use the Ether attribute: Nicole, Zhu Yuan, and Astra. In the lore, Hollows produce a lot of Ether, and they can corrupt beings and transform them into Ethereals without ample protection. The significance of them having the Ether attribute may appear in the story later on.

Zenless Zone Zero is available on the PS5, Windows PC, and mobile devices.