In 2026, the wild streets of New Eridu are louder than ever—and not because of any monster brawl. The true racket comes from the turntables, the synth stabs, and the fresh crackle of a vinyl platter that just landed on a fan's shelf. HoYoverse’s Zenless Zone Zero has completely flipped the script on what a blockbuster gacha soundtrack can be. Instead of sweeping orchestras or space-opera choirs, players get deep-fried basslines, lo-fi grooves, acid jazz detours, and enough EDM drops to make a festival crowd lose its collective mind. And honestly? The game is all the better for it.
The masterminds behind this musical rebellion are not some faceless audio department churning out safe cinematic scores. They’re Sān-Z Studio, a tight-knit band of producers led by Yang Wutao, who operate more like a secret society of late-night crate-diggers than traditional game composers. Their vibe is raw, their process is borderline feral, and their core belief is deceptively simple: emotion first, genre later—or maybe never. As Yang himself put it in a sit-down with IGN, if music doesn’t hit you in the gut, it’s just noise. The rest is just paperwork.
Characters That Bump: Building Agent EPs from the Inside Out
When Sān-Z cooks up a character EP for someone like Yanagi, they don’t start by asking “What’s hot on the charts?” That’s amateur hour. Instead, Yang and his crew get nosy. They dig into the awkward gaps the lore team left behind—like what Yanagi thinks about on her lonely commute home after a day of mothering half the city. She’s exhausted, a little melancholic, but still got that quiet strength. Boom, that’s a mood. The track builds itself from there. Caesar, the tough-as-nails frontliner who secretly cries at sunsets because he’s a Pisces? Time to lean into his soft side. Burnice, the literal human explosion of chaotic energy? Crank up the BPM and let the EDM rip. It’s practically algorithmic, but in a soulful, non-robotic way.
At no point does anyone in the studio raise a hand and say, “Hold on, is this popping off on TikTok?” The question is always: does the music sound like the inside of this character’s head? If it does, they’ve nailed it. If it doesn’t, back to the drawing board—and they’re brutally honest about it. Perfection is the enemy of dope, but honesty is its best friend.
The Club Is a Character, Not a Gimmick
Electronic music didn’t need an invitation; it was already moving into New Eridu before the first line of code was written. Yang describes it as a meeting of like-minded weirdos. The game’s art direction hit his eyeballs, and his brain instantly went: this place needs four-on-the-floor kicks, growling basslines, and synth loops that loop until they transcend. Collaborating with global titans like Tiësto or hosting Creamfields stages felt less like a marketing stunt and more like a family reunion. You don’t need a dissertation to understand a drop; you just feel it in your bones. That’s the exact flavor ZZZ wanted to serve.
And serve it did. At ZZZ FES events across China and ZLive parties in Japan and the US, the production team didn’t need flashy holograms or laser mazes. They just let the music do the heavy lifting, and the crowds went absolutely feral. No convoluted lore, no pretentious worldbuilding—just pure, uncut energy.
Radio Hits or Game Tracks? They Don’t Care—They Just Want a Good Song
Inside the studio, nobody cares about labeling things as “video game music” or “a standalone banger.” That distinction is for Spotify algorithms, not artists. The bar is simply: does this track have emotion, energy, and polish? If it slaps, it’s a song. The game has hundreds of cues that work purely as functional background noise, and that’s fine. But EP tracks? Those get the white-glove treatment. The ultimate dream, Yang admits with a grin, is that one day someone who’s never even seen a Proxy will stumble upon a ZZZ track and get hooked—no controller required. That’s the dream, and they’re chasing it.
The Controlled Chaos of Battle Music
Combat themes in ZZZ have one rule: the music must be alive. Sān-Z handed out directions ages ago—electronic foundation, don’t go completely off the rails—but otherwise, every composer is encouraged to inject their own weirdness into a track. Hugo’s battle theme could smash a window with its metal riffs, a massive departure from the overarching electronic vibe, but it’s got a heartbeat. You hear it and you know exactly which oddball in the studio was possessed by the spirit of a rock god that day. That’s way more valuable than sterile consistency.
Retro Soul Without the Cosplay
New Eridu loves its VHS tapes, CRT monitors, and dusty vinyl collections. But you can’t literally compose a “CRT chord progression.” What the retro aesthetic triggers, according to Yang, is a collective nostalgia itch. The team spans multiple generations, so one person’s retro is lo-fi hip-hop static; another’s is the swooning jazz of a ’90s anime ending. They toss all of that into a blender and what comes out isn’t a cheap throwback—it’s a sonic memory soup that feels layered and genuine. The aesthetic doesn’t tell them how to produce; it asks them what feeling they’re after. Then modern tools do the rest.
The Bardic Needle and Why Elfy Gets It
Players spend an embarrassing amount of time fiddling with Drive Discs at Bardic Needle, making music a literal gameplay mechanic. Yang finds that deeply validating. It confirms what the team always suspected: that the citizens of New Eridu treat music the way they do—as tied to growth, identity, and vibes. Elfy’s whole elegant-plant-mom thing inspired the bossa nova chic of “Tipsy Muse,” because a samba rager would’ve been too much for her aesthetic. The scene always calls the shots.
Vinyl: Because Holding a Banger Feels Better Than Streaming It
As of April 29, 2026, fans can finally grip a physical piece of New Eridu. The vinyl release via Laced Records isn’t about snooty audiophile flexing—it’s about ritual. Sliding that record out of its sleeve, dropping the needle, and hearing the faint crackle before the first beat kicks in… that’s a whole different ballgame from mindlessly scrolling while Bluetooth earbuds leak tinny hi-hats. The tracklist was crowd-sourced by love: whatever songs fans had on infinite loop made the cut. In ten years, that slab of wax will still remind someone of the first time they stepped into the Hollows. And that, Sān-Z reckons, is a legacy worth every groove.
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