Zenless Zone Zero’s second beta got underway on PC and mobile this week, giving gacha gamers an exclusive early opportunity to put the character action title through its paces before it comes to consoles – including, presumably, PS5. However, while the game is generally drawing acclaim, a subset of fans are irate with the alleged censorship in this updated version of the release.
Specifically, eagle-eyed players have spotted several “downgrades” to the pink-haired promo character Nicole Demara, whose chest physics have been toned down a touch. Similarly, she’s no longer animated quite as provocatively as she was in previous versions. But she’s not the only hero to be desexualised: others have clearly had their shorts covered up, and there’s generally less skin on display than there was before.
It's not just content of a sexual nature that’s been scaled back, though: others have noticed some instances of gore being toned down. Obviously, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that HoYoverse is a Chinese developer, a country with pretty stringent censorship rules. While Zenless Zone Zero does have a higher age rating than the likes of Genshin Impact, it’ll still want the title to launch domestically.
Perhaps the real issue here is that fans have seen the original character designs, and so can observe how they’ve been adjusted. Obviously this isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but we’d always err towards preserving the original creative vision where possible – even if these adjustments don’t seem quite as dramatic as some would lead you to believe.
Comments 95
It kind of suck, maybe the devs original design didn't pass the chinese goverment version of ESRB?
Well, at least in chinese games the characters are allowed to be attractive, unlike in AAA western games.
„Original creative vision“, probably the devs themselves found the original design too much. In my opinion, their new design is more acceptable for mature people and so a more mature design.
@Max_the_German That's a very fair point, yes.
Damn, people really like those moon tiddie physics huh. Jiggle is one thing but come on, the og has a mind of its own
It's such weird logic to censor something that is very clearly intended for mature audiences lol.
This sort of thing happens all the time and for somewhat unknown reasons. If you play Honkai you might have noticed that a character, Topaz, got a "booty nerf" once she became available in the gacha. There are screenshots comparing her...trunk from when she was just an NPC in an event to how she is now. Not sure why this especially happens with Mihoyo games but there you have it.
I don't care how this will sound: I want those boobs back! I don't care about the game but in fictional media every kind of cencorship is awful. This game is designed towards adults, let them have what they want.
Or better yet, don't do things where you have to scale back later.
In the end maybe we should be happy about she is having feminine body instead of having androgynous proportions yet again which is popular in recent years.
This is a fix, not censorship lol.
Every time someone complains about this stuff I cringe, secondhand embarrassment.
“Eagle eyes” noticed the change?
More like “one eyed monsters” noticed the change.
I'm more disappointed about how she turns her bum that one looked way cooler.
@EchoRange May I ask, what exactly do you find embarrassing here?
I see people taking 2 kinds of issue here :
I get your second embarrassment feeling, but I don't see why you get it in this case.
Removed - inappropriate
@Scottyy I don't mind different body types but this was sad. You don't have to have one sort of body type. And it's always going to be less perfect female if not every woman looks perfect. The was almost always one version of females.
But I really was more disappointed about her cool/hot bum animation acting sexy isn't a crime she even looks adult. Her chest is more the question of having a decent bra or she would know herself out during gameplay.
The Twitter hate towards Aloy looking more like her actress wasn't really a big issue for me to give a example. I had a bigger issue when they showed Aloy the good Aloy that looked more fake then a Kardashian as a example what was right.
@wiiware I'm kinda annoyed by these reactions. Atleast in China women are allowed to look attractive?
Gaming is becoming more and more a thing every one does women and men, boys and girls it's accepted for everyone.
With a bigger group of different people you don't have to only make one group happy not only the 15 year old boy that just hit puberty.
It also makes a lot of sense that you get a lot of different types of people when you make games for a more diverse group of people.
I need to see the first fat female in a game that isn't a joke character in a leading role so it's not as bad as you make it out to be.
It's not censorship if you're just fixing something that is lame as hell in the first place.
You want jiggle physics go play Tower of Fantasy or Senran Kagura Peach Beach Splash. From what I remember I don't believe characters from Genshin or Honkai Star Rail have these physics either so maybe it's a company policy kind of thing that wants to keep parity between the games.
China out here saving AAA gaming I see 😮💨
Those flat-earthers are at it again I see... Leave Friendless-Boner-Zero alone dammit!
I don't care about this game but censorship is always bad. If it's not forced by the store owners why not just give an option to toggle that stuff on or off like other games do with blood/violence etc.
So the developer shrunk her huge boobs to just big, I’d be embarrassed to be upset by this.
To be honest, looks like an upgrade to me. The original is tacky.
I'm as anti-censorship as the next guy but this looks more like an artistic choice to me 🤔 if it was censorship then they'd have just removed her boobs entirely, right? That's what we do these days - chop chop!
I'm all for some titty-jiggle. Dunno why that would offend anyone in the first place. #BodyWobblePride
I'll take some jiggling man-buns as well while we're at it. Whatever the games artists want to do then it's their choice 🤷 toned down or whatever. Does it really matter? If some people wanting sexualised characters in a videogame is causing some second-hand embarrassment for some of you then... pfffft! Probably time for yoy to give up watching porn too. Hypocrits.
Please get rid of the censorship!
It's probably down to Chinese gov censorship. I believe they have an actual morality police force now. I am against this type of censorship especially since all male characters tend to be bishounen. But if a dude complains about this stuff there is always the "perv" icon prescribed to him. (incoming rant)The prime directive of live is to replicate we shouldn't shame or censor anyone's preferences so long as it's within legal bounds. I recall team ninja adding a "boob jiggle" function to ninja gaiden 2 cutscenes with the dual shock mechanism back in the day. Gamers found stuff like that funny back then. Now the devs would have pitchforks outside their offices and get cancelled.
I just can’t imagine being annoyed by this. Calling it censorship is an insult to actual censorship over the years. It’s not censorship, it’s differing content regulations for countries. Japan’s the exact same for violence and actual genitalia, so no country’s ‘perfect’. This is talked about more because there’s an awful lot of people who simply have no life. Behind the scenes there’s a million tiny things changed by devs, writers, directors of movies, all just to obtain certain age classifications. Is it ‘censorship’ if a Marvel movie removes one swear word to become a 12 instead of a 15? Pathetic.
I wouldn’t play these types of games anyway, the genre doesn’t appeal, but I especially wouldn’t play something if I was constantly being reminded that I wasn’t getting a superior version. And, yes, I consider the original version superior. It’s why I’m holding off on getting Koi Koi Love Blossoms on VR2 until I know it hasn’t fallen foul of Sonys notoriously puritanical rules for Asian games.
I’m glad at least some of the commenters are willing to explore other possibilities than censorship such as it was a bug fix or an internal QA update.
My cheap opinion is that this might just be pure capitalism at work. I bet a lot of people would be less interested, grossed out, or embarrassed to play around friends/family with v1. Might want to consider they just made the change to make more money.
Remember if this is Chinese government censorship, they could always have two versions of the game. Many games do including Azur Lane.
I love angry gamers
Oh no!!! Our precious cartoon misogyny!!! Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!!
You'll notice that a lot of the people that complain about oversexualization also tend to love gore and extreme violence in gaming. I bet other people look at you the same way when you practically fetishize murderporn games.
As far as the developer being Chinese, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the CCP mostly discourages male characters that appear efeminine, not overly feminine female characters. Again, I could be way off here
Well, that's lame. I generally dislike this sort of censorship or self-censorship or whatever it is here. Plus, the original design sure does looks better.
I hate censorship like most others. BUT the game hasn't even released, so nothing was final to begin with. So not sure I would even consider it a real censorship. But then again, one of character designs in Genshin Impact and Honkai 3rd had the chinese fanbase up in arms over the chest size as well. So I can imagine it may also be why they are trying to tone it down already.
Oddly enough, the "censored" version is anatomically correct.
Remember people, your body isn't a blob, it won't jiggle as much after the first movement.
This is more realistic, don't need to be upset as long as the game is good. Remember China is kind of an authoritarian country. They just recently banned one of the singers performed in French strip club.
@mrbone "kind of"?
Considering some of you are saying this is for "mature" audiences the responses sound like they're coming from horny teenagers desperate for cartoon boobs. Like, have a serious think before you post this kind of stuff. It's quite pathetic.
No wonder the gaming community is a well for incels.
Remember when that one character looked like Elliot formerly Elen Page and they changed it and that one Peter Parker kinda changed to look more like Tom Holland and then Aloy looked different between HZD and HFW? Where any of those “censorship”?
Just b/c characters in a game change doesn’t automatically make it censorship.🤷🏻♂️
Question - is this actually confirmed as coming to PS5? No point worrying if it isn't even coming to this platform.
@EchoRange couldn’t agree more, it’s honestly pathetic.
Removed - unconstructive
Maybe they will add overly exaggerated jiggle physics as a gacha prize down the line to capitalize on this.
@thaidanh It's not just Nicole that's being censored, but it's the thing the media has latched onto because "muh gamers are perverts."
There's also some edgy jokes that have been cut, as well as removal of some graphics when a person gets morphed into a monster.
Eh. Anime and video games are full of cartoon tits. It's not like there's a draught. People genuinely upset about this can...go play something else?
It's pretty pathetic and hypocritical how some commenters on here and in society are so quick to put others down for their female aesthetic preferences in the games they want to play when male characters have and are constantly being oversexualized and hypermasculine. No one complained for decades of having to watch snake go prone and crawl for hours with his skin tight suit and perfectly shaped buns but lara croft crawls through 1 tunnel and all hell breaks loose. Fighting game males are always half naked and hyper masculine. Go complain about those first and maybe I'll consider your points of view.
@Cloud34156 Why "pathetic" or "cringe" though?
Most males enjoy "titties" in their entertainment now and then, and would like for the option to stay available as long as possible, so any attempt to censor, or even lessen, the amount of boobs you can have in a game is viewed suspiciously...
You may not care about boobs, but why would not having the same view on the subject than you be pathetic or cringe?
@ear_wig jiggling boobs are not misogyny 😂 if anything all the characters are pretty over-sexualised. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what they're going for art-wise. No shame in any of it. Not that there's even an issue with the updated jiggle physics.
@Flaming_Kaiser I don't think western AAA games make games for everyone, I mean look at MK1 character design compared to previous games.
Heck, I don't think they even make games for western people anymore, AAA devs only make games for california people (with california morals) now, which is: make that male as attractive as possible, do the opposite with the female characters.
@Loamy Fair enough, maybe I misused the word. I guess I would argue that depicting women as giant jiggly-breasted, over-sexualized dolls for commercial consumption is misogynist-adjacent lol
@ear_wig Hmm. Personally I think thats just painting consumers of such content with the same, judgemental brush. I thought these days we should all be comfortable with our sexuality and desires... Liking some wobbly tits in a videogame does not in any way, shape or form make you misogynistic or "misogynistic-adjacent" imo.
It's fair enough if it's not your style but I'd withhold any rash judgements, especially something as harsh as the "misogyny" label for those that do 👍
How do you feel about OTT violence in videogames? An interesting comparison. Enjoying violent games does not mean you're a psychopath murderer.
@ear_wig Why would it be misogynistic to depict women of a certain type. "Jiggly-breasted and oversexualized" women exist for real you know...
Aren't you extremely judgmental about how the female body should or should not be represented, and which type anyone should or should not enjoy to look at?
@Olmaz I see no problem with "Jiggly breasted" characters, as first of all it's pretty much fact that the majority of males like that in women, secondly no one makes a fuss over women liking Otome visual novel games where all the men are slim with six packs and good looking. Some games are made to cater to certain audiences and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, you want games with handsome muscely men then that doesn't make you creepy, pathetic or cringey, same with guys wanting to play games with female characters with big breasts, doesn't mean you creepy, pathetic or cringey either. Heck even my misses likes playing those kinds of games like senran kagura, atelier ryza, sword art online etc and her favourite characters are all the "sexualized" female ones like leafa etc, she says those characters are more appealing to play as art wise.
Also a Misogynist is some who dislikes women, these devs are clearly not misogynistic just because they like large breasts, if anything they would be the opposite. Liking attractive characters and a females features is far from being Misogynistic.
@loamy @olmaz As I said before, I’ll concede that “misogyny” is maybe not the right word here, and is maybe too extreme. In America, it has become synonymous with “sexist”. But let’s not sit here and pretend that being horny for a woman’s jiggly breasts in a game equates to liking and/or appreciating women, or some great act of feminism. C’mon, now! You say I’m being judgmental, and sure, maybe I am. But lol to me being judgmental about “how a female body should or should not be represented”. Absolutely, there are indeed women with large breasts in the world—yep they do exist! And do they have a right to be depicted in a videogame? Yep they sure do! And was that what this game was doing? And this culture of depicting female characters with sexy outfits and giant jiggling breasts? A favor to large-breasted women by depicting them as fully-realized humans, worth more than their bodies, which exist for viewers and gamers to control for their pleasure? Ummmmm… I don’t think so? It seems like maybe the developers (or someone at the company) likely realized that too, and toned it down. So good for them? I guess…?
Anyways, I certainly wasn’t planning on making this stand today, but I typed a thing, and here we are! And don’t get me wrong, I like breasts too! But just because something feels good doesn’t make it right, ya know? But I appreciate the argument, y’all. Disagreeing and talking about it is part of how we all grow as human beings.
Just watch JAV/AV if those gamers want to view boobs jiggle plz.
@ear_wig 100%agree and we all knew what you meant. They just jumped on the definition of the term to argue in favor of what is in all actuality a pretty fickle and disgusting subset of gaming focused on catering to male audiences through hypersexualisation often coupled with childlike female portrayal.
Appreciate your thoughts. I like gaming and I like exploring the many curves of the female body,... In real life
I don't play games to watch cartoon tits and A jiggle as they run around in glorified stripperware cosplay. It's a juvenile fetish.
@ear_wig yeah, I agree that this was likely more of an artistic choice than anything else. Completely fine imo. I just find it kinda funny how some people (not you in particular) are so cautious/stuffy about this kind of stuff when it's common in gaming to use extreme violence in games. One of those is fine and the other... bad? Both are bad? Maybe a majority is fine and only some are bad? I still wouldn't say it's a misogynistic, sexist or immoral act to consume any media with these 'offending articles'. Maybe it is for some but again, it's not fair to call everyone out for it. It's the same as people who eat cake - 99% of cake-eaters are fine with it, the other 1% will lack control and become morbidly obese. You don't just remove cakes from sale for the majority or chastise those that eat them (weird analogy, I know). At least, that's the liberal in me coming to that conclusion.
Completely right about the discourse though (this isn't really an argument, is it?). The thing is this isn't some binary, black//white thing and the groups of consumers we're talking about aren't all in agreement with any of these design choices. You should know that I actually disagree with Olmaz's points too, mostly for the same reasons you replied with. So yeah, it's highly variable depending on the individual.
Btw I couldn't tell if you were saying that you're in the US or if you were inferring I was, but im not. 😌 cheers for the reply. We can agree to disagree if it has to be👍 although we'd likely find more common ground in our viewpoints than differences if we really hashed it out. It's an interesting and pretty complex topic. I do get where you're coming from in that it could make some pre-existing misogynists/sexists worse but for the majority I see no issue.
@KundaliniRising333 It's kind of important to choose the right words to get your point across so I'm glad ear_wig followed up with a more detailed reply of their views.
I severely hope you aren't refering to me and lumping everyone in the same basket as the likely small and horny minority. I don't play games to stare at animated breasts. I just don't see a problem with using OTT breast physics in a game if the artists choose to do so. In fact, I don't even play games like this one. I think the last game I played with majorly over-sexualised characters was Dragon's Crown and that game had a beautiful art style and fantastic character design for male and female characters. Just because I'd not turn my nose up at virtual titty-jiggling does not make me juvenile. If there are people really salivating over these pixel breasts then that's fine too imo. There are plenty of gaming options to satisfy our basal human urges, whatever they may be.
Better to ditch that "us" and "them" mentality altogether as it's not really grounds for critical thinking about these subjects with myriad factors. And please remember that I don't even think this change was down to censorship but rather artistic choice. I have 0 problems with the amount of wobble or clothing this character has either way 😂.
I'm honestly not having a go at you or anything, I just wanted to provide my actual viewpoints and feelings rather than being labelled something that I'm certainly not. If you weren't talking about me then that's egg on my face live n let live is all I'm saying.
@ear_wig What the hell are you going on? Full-realized human beings are characters with stories in a gatcha game designed to be attractive to their audiences. What exactly are your criteria for a full human? Are the hot male characters not "fully realized human beings because someone controls them for their pleasure"? So Leon from resident evil? That, like every game character, is attractive to someone. It just sounds like you copied and pasted a bunch of buzzwords and got called out on them because you had no idea what any of them meant, which is why you retracted the comment on misogyny . How does a character having big boobs make them less of a fully realized human being? Controlling a character These are video games in which all characters are controlled by the player. That's literally what a video game is, like every other video game. do you make that argument every time a hot, attractive male character is on screen? Someone thirsts after him; he's not a fully realized human being. What does that even mean? Is a shirtless vampire in the game not "fully realized human being because he is shirtless and someone controls "him? Feels good, but it's bad? Begone puritan!. And no, it is standard Chinese government censorship; countless games get censored; they also remove dialogue; they remove violence; blood and skulls The word Taiwan .
Censorship is watching classic 80's action movies on ITV before the watershed.
@Flaming_Kaiser
Hey dude. I talked something similar with another guy here. What I hate is they taking those face models and making them uglier. Aloy included. Face model is a pretty standard woman; but when you compare it to how they put it in the game you can see they adjust it to make it look uglier than real life person.
You can see same pattern for a lot of female characters in recent years' games. Cassandra, Dina, Aloy, MJ. Just check their face models and the way they put those faces in games.
Also, yeah waiting for make up beauty was ridiculous and that stupid post made it all look like they want that. But that's not the truth: Wanting to see ordinary looking or sometimes -God forbid- above average woman is not a bad thing and no; nobody wants porn stars and it's just a simplest name calling from idiot people.
Geez some people care way too much about this. The game isn’t even out yet it wasn’t censorship just a tweak in the art. And also if this is a huge problem that affects your enjoyment of the game just maybe you aren’t playing it for the right reasons anyhow.
@KundaliniRising333 @ear_wig I'm with you two on this. If I want jiggly tits I'll either watch bay watch or annoy the wife so she chases me about not play video games.
@Scottyy I just don't agree a little bit Aloy does not look ugly ingame peel off the face models makeup and look what she looks like. I think she even went to Twitter to show this herself. 😆
@z0d15g0d Let's be real here I agree not everything that is made a issue is a real issue and that really hurts a cause.
But female characters are way sexualised then male characters. Look at RPG's alone with armor as a example i don't mind it but i won't act like it isn't true.
I always play as a female if there is a option i wont deny that either but females really are more sexualised.
But I do feel that people also should stop making big issues about fake issues that only hurts it when there are real issues.
@UltimateOtaku91 I don't think your comparison between male and female characters works that well (i.e that 6 pack + being tall = huge breasts). I think the equivalent would be male characters with huge bulges that jiggle when your character walks or runs. I believe they would look equally ridiculous and would make many people uncomfortable. Sure, guys with huge bulges exist, but even if I'm into men, I don't want to see that in video games. Especially if I have to worry about people "catching" me playing that game. I get why it's not that much of an issue for people who live alone and are into that, though.
Terms like "slavery" and "censorship" are thrown around so easily that they lose their meaning. No, getting a low salary isn't slavery. Nor is this censorship. Censorship literally costs lives in certain countries. This is so trivial in comparison, it should simply be called something else.
@Flaming_Kaiser I get what you're saying about female armour in rpg's and to be honest I used to think that too. Then you look at comparisons in real life and the only 2 groups of women warriors I can think of that existed were the Amazons and the African women warrior tribes. Their armour sets were also minimalist like in rpgs. Makes sense as men have more stamina to run around with heavy equipment. For those who think that was a sexist remark blame the army training around the world as they have different weights sets for male and female training. I think because males are sexualised as standard in games you can no longer tell. A much higher percentage of men are overweight and obese than healthy let alone ripped and yet its that minority that heavily represented in most games with added chiseled features and machismo. Devs are just balancing the scales on the females part but yet people complain.
Apart from the jelly jiggle I don't see any difference, her tits look the same size.
@wiiware Whats the problem with the MK1 characters they look bloody gorgeous? The female characters how are they ugly? You have way more releastic and diverse character models instead of a basic model where the skin color is changed.
@z0d15g0d I would agree on that point but why are the parts that need to be protected the most open. I understand that there are differences but the are some questionable choices for armor that's for certain especially in fantasy games.
@Loamy Hey I really appreciate your response. Ever since I became a teacher, I began looking at a lot of this stuff differently, violence included.
@ear_wig 👍 good to interact with open-minded people like yourself. I used to be in education too - I was a zookeeper, which involved educating the public and explaining animal behaviour, conservation., violence, sexuality and other basal, animalistic desires. I had some great discussions with people with alternative viewpoints. Really got me questioning my own viewpoints about human psychology too.
Isn't it a great feeling to have a proper debate when both parties walk away with things to ponder?
Removed - unconstructive
@Flaming_Kaiser Haha yea sometimes they do go over the top where form has no practical function. In those instances I just laugh it off cause they must have done it as a joke. Older gamers grew up watching Arthur lose his armour and run around in his underwear. Same with Gill and Urien from SF3 fighting in thongs. Urien rips up his suit to fight in a thong. This sexualised depiction is always done to males so I still have difficulty understanding when people say it can't/shouldn't be done with female characters.
How many people are actually upset about this, and then how many of them are upset just for the sake of being upset? This seems deeply unimportant.
I don’t understand how jiggle physics for stuff that actually jiggle is frowned upon but a game where you can get personal with a bear gets nothing said😂
"Alleged" Nothing alleged about it. Censorship is censorship. I'm not giving them a cent. It'd be one thing if these were their og designs to begin with. But it's not.
@HeeHo China that's why.
@Mythologue Interesting you took the time to comment on something you deemed "unimportant"
@z0d15g0d The complaints are unimportant. The conversation is not.
@Mythologue The conversation began because of the complaints. I do understand what angle you're coming from but there is so much nuance within this topic that a general blanket that the complaints are unimportant shows you have not taken the time to read them.
Just marching in here to throw my "This ain't censorship" comment in before marching back out as quickly as I arrived.
@Flaming_Kaiser Dude, there's no "diverse" woman body in MK1, all of them are below average looking, and why the heck I want diverse/below average looking in my games? I have enough of that in real life, if I want to see average looking I just go outside.
Heck, even the womans in my local malls is better than the characters in MK1 lol.
I like the "censored" version a lot better tho.
Got a sports bra with better support
I guess if this is what you are planning to do in-game. People who are actually playing the game are seeing the back of their character and trying to time crazy combat.
anyone saying the censored edit is better would not buy the game anyway, so why even bother commenting?
Male characters get sexualized in different ways than females. Men don't get bikini armor, jiggly boobs, or pretty faces. Men get to be ultimate protectors, financially reliable, and silently stoic. These "beauty standards" for men are as difficult to obtain as any of the ones that women are subjected to yet are perpetuated in all kinds of media.
@MikeOrator yes. But how many men protest this notion? The people who complain about cartoons not having huge boobs usually want to see men "sexualized" in this way.
@AhmadSumadi
Remember the silent stoic part of my comment, that's why men don't complain. Just think of leading men's roles in most media. The guy is usually fit, rich, and capable and if he doesn't start out that way he becomes that throughout the story. This now creates an unreasonable expectation for men to be these things, as that is how society measures their value, even if they can't be. Furthermore, these men develop mental health issues, body dysmorphia, and self-esteem issues and this could as we all know lead to violence, depression, or worse.
Yet because men don't say anything it becomes ok as they must be complicit in the stereotype that has been used to portray them in media.
Anyway. Just my 2 cents
@wiiware Kitana looks gorgeous , Sindel is gorgeous, Nitara looks average? Sonya Blade looks fantastic, Frost looks awsome.
I would say you have bad taste but in this case I'm seriously questioning if your not blind. 😉
@z0d15g0d If you look at fighting games armor and costumes can be so stupid walking around in a thong is more disgusting then sexy to me but I agree they are ridiculous. 🤣
@Flaming_Kaiser If you think MK1 characters are better than their previous games, maybe you're just into more average aunty-like woman? I means, hey whatever works for you man, don't drag me into this though lol.
I asked how to get into the android beta of this game and it gets deleted as "unconstructive"!? What gives?
I guess only full blown negativity gets the stage on this page.
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