Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) has officially gone an entire year without announcing a new A-Rank Agent, and players are starting to wonder if HoYoverse has simply moved on from the character rarity.
A recent discussion in the community points out that it has now been a full year since the game last announced an A-Rank character; a pretty wild milestone considering how important A-Ranks were to the game’s early roster. But there is also a very good reason why HoYoverse may not be in much of a hurry to bring them back.
Players Want More A-Ranks Until Their Favorite Becomes One
There is a strange contradiction surrounding A-Ranks in ZZZ. Players regularly ask for more of them, especially as S-Rank Agents continue to increasingly dominate the roster. At the same time, nobody wants the character they’ve been waiting months to see… only for HoYoverse to reveal them as an A-Rank.
That is because A-Ranks have an unfortunate fate in ZZZ. They are generally easier to obtain and can be incredibly useful, but newer A-Rank DPS characters in particular have a difficult time competing with the game’s premium S-Ranks. Put simply, they are statistically inferior even in the best of cases.
One recent discussion summed up the problem pretty bluntly: a new A-Rank will probably struggle to keep up with modern endgame content from the moment they release. Manato was the last A-Rank addition to the roster, and while capable, he is far weaker than any other Rupture Agent. That’s because all other Rupture Agents are S-Rank.
At the time of his release, Manato’s A-Rank status generated plenty of discussion, with some players disappointed that a beloved character was not given S-Rank treatment. At the same time, other players pointed out the obvious advantage: A-Ranks are much easier to obtain, can be taken to M6, and don’t require the same investment as limited S-Ranks.
So while players can certainly miss having new A-Ranks, there is a reason the reaction can instantly change when their favorite character is revealed as one. Everyone wants more A-Ranks until the character they’ve been waiting for becomes an A-Rank.
For now, though, the drought continues. ZZZ has gone a full year without a newly announced A-Rank, and with the game continuing to expand its roster with increasingly powerful S-Ranks, it remains unclear whether HoYoverse plans to break that streak anytime soon.
