At the heart of any gacha game is the currency you use to pull for new characters, and Zenless Zone Zero is no exception. The most valuable currencies are for the limited banner, and in ZZZero, they’re called Polychrome and Encrypted Master Tape. Here’s how to get more of both.
How to Get Polychrome in Zenless Zone Zero
Like all of HoYoverse’s games, the process of getting Polychrome, the premium currency you can use to buy pulls, is very front-loaded. You’ll have by far the most opportunities when you first start Zenless Zone Zero, between world chests, the main story quest, achievements, minigames, and launch events, to name a few. A lot of these sources of Polychrome are also one-time-only, meaning once collected, they’re gone forever. You are, of course, free to use or save them at your discretion.
Main Story Quests
Like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and the games they’ve inspired, doing the main story quest of Zenless Zone Zero provides a modicum of Polychrome per quest completed. Usually, each quest step awards 60 or so Polychrome, as well as Inter-Knot experience, experience consumables, and other currencies. There are dozens of story missions in ZZZero, especially at the launch of a major update, meaning you can get hundreds or over 1,000 Polychrome if you do them all.
Story mission rewards are some of the easiest to get in any gacha game, as the story is rarely the most difficult part of the game. There are certainly times when it can spike in difficulty, like the Raiden Shogun or Phantilia fights in Genshin and HSR, respectively. By those points, however, the game expects you to have heavily invested in a team of characters, so the spike shouldn’t be too much, though it often is.
Achievements
You can’t escape achievement hunting, even in gacha games, though you actually get something tangible here. Achievements in Zenless Zone Zero all award Polychrome, whether five, 10, or 20. The more difficult or complicated an achievement task is, the higher the reward. Simple achievements like “defeat 100 enemies X type” might be worth five Polychrome, where the same achievement for 1,000 or more such enemies might be 10 or even 20, depending on how hard the enemy is to defeat. Most main story quest achievements are also 10 or 20 Polychrome, and the quest rewards themselves.
Arcade Games
I’m cheating a bit here, but there is an entirely separate set of achievements for playing the games at the Godfinger Arcade. As with standard achievements, the arcade ones come in values of five, 10, and 20, with higher difficulty meaning higher rewards. I’ve separated the two types as you can earn standard achievements by playing the game normally, and arcade achievements are only earnable through arcade games.
Errands and Primer Trials
Progression tasks are back in Zenless Zone Zero, with Primer Trials being the story and gameplay progression tasks you’re likely to complete simply by playing the game, unlocking new systems, and upgrading characters and their gear. Like the previous rewards, Primer Trials are one-time-only rewards, though they are generous, providing up to 100 Polychrome on completion.
Errands are your daily tasks that, after completing four, reward 60 Polychrome. Thankfully, errands are incredibly simple to complete and include things like drinking coffee, doing your daily scratch-off card, logging into the game, and other simple actions.
Missing Mini Cargo Truck Treasure Chests
Treasure chest rewards are also back in Zenless Zone Zero, and they’re about how you remember them. Each of the out-of-combat zones has a smattering of chests, called Missing Mini Cargo Trucks, that award Polychrome and additional currency and experience when opened.
Limited-time Events
Zenless Zone Zero will follow its sister games’ example and have limited-time events that award hundreds or even around 1,000 Polychrome, provided you claim all the rewards the event has to offer. These events often progress over multiple days, with new objectives and activities unlocking as time goes by. Larger events with voice acting and more complex mechanics will, of course, be more rewarding than those you can spend fifteen minutes a day completing.
VR Training and 5-Star Demos
Early on in the Zenless Zone Zero story, you gain access to VR training, as well as the Signal Search gacha system. Completing tasks in VR training are worth 10 Polychromes, for a maximum of 200, and get an additional 120 by trying the demo for the six S-Rank Agents you can choose from as part of the 300 standard pull reward system.
Endgame Modes, Including Shiyu Defense and Hollow Zero
The story of Zenless Zone Zero is great and all, but the endgame activities will be the real draw keeping people invested. Shiyu Defense and Hollow Zero are both incredibly rewarding and follow the example set by HoYoverse’s previous games, offering a challenge gauntlet of increasing enemy difficulty and a rogue-lite mode. Both are incredibly rewarding, especially the first time through.
Spend Money on Monochrome and the New Eridu City Fund Battle Pass
It wouldn’t be a gacha game if you couldn’t spend real-world money to fast-track your way to success. If you want to spend infinite money on Polychrome, you can do so by buying Monochrome and then converting it on a one-to-one basis. If you’d rather be a bit more frugal, spending the five bucks on the New Eridu City Fund Battle Pass for 680 Polychrome right away and an additional few hundred, plus a small but significant amount of Encrypted Master Tapes.
How to Get Encrypted Master Tapes in Zenless Zone Zero
Encrypted Master Tapes are a much scarcer resource in ZZZero, primarily because you can simply buy the things with 160 Polychrome a pop. That said, there are still a few ways to get them directly from the game. Just don’t expect them to be nearly as plentiful.
Limited-time and Special Events
Many of the major updates Zenless Zone Zero will get will probably award Encrypted Master Tape, including numbered patches, rare limited events, and anniversaries. During the launch period, when you can get 100 free pulls, there are two week-long login events awarding 20 Encrypted Master Tape, and if ZZZero follows Honkai: Star Rail, each major update patch could come with an additional 10.
The Signal Shop
More carry-overs from Genshin and HSR, the Signal Shop is where you spend the currencies you get from pulling on the standard and limited banners to buy more pulls. There are three ways to spend your currencies:
- Spend 20 Residual Signal for a single Encrypted Master Tape. There’s no limit on how many Tapes you can buy here, save your stock of Residual Signal.
- Spend 90 Fading Signal for a maximum of five Encrypted Master Tapes per month, or 10 per update period.
- Spend 160 Polychrome for one Encrypted Master tape, with no limit on how many you can buy (besides the Polychrome you have to spend).
Besides these methods, there aren’t many other ways to get Encrypted Master Tapes in Zenless Zone Zero, again because you can just buy the things indefinitely if you have enough currency to do so. Polychrome is a much more available resource, and only you would do well to hoard until you see a character you like and decide to pull for them.
If you’re looking for more ZZZero coverage, check out our guides hub.
