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Zenless Zone Zero secretly hints at link with Honkai Star Rail

As new HoYoverse gacha game Zenless Zone Zero hits stride, a well-hidden secret suggests a link to beloved cousin Honkai Star Rail.

a close up of a moody face with dark bangs and a freckle under the left eye

Live service games are defined by their communities. So many come and go without as much as a whisper, but the ones that endure do so because their fans share their favorite moments and create intricate stories around them. While Zenless Zone Zero has only just launched, and hasn’t had time to capture people’s hearts just yet, HoYoverse’s previous game Honkai Star Rail did, and the new game contains a fun easter egg suggesting a link to its predecessor.

For some reason, the trash cans in Honkai Star Rail had incredibly funny interactions. It’s a testament to the prowess of HoYoverse’s writers that such simple objects, normally used as background dressing, took on lives of their own. When Stelle, one of the Trailblazers in the game, interacts with one, it reads, “the old dumpster stands silently, carrying its own resolute gravitas that reminds you of an elder of vast wisdom.” Zenless Zone Zero looks like it’s thrown in a reference to the old garbage receptacles, and embraced a community meme while it’s at it.

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Players of the popular gacha game created a love story between Stelle and the trash cans, drawing fan art of her cuddling bins and even depicting her with raccoon ears, happily sat inside the cylinders.

In Zenless Zone Zero, fans have noticed that one of the trash cans is different. The Strange Trash Can offers the words, “every now and then, you hear strange rattling noises coming from inside the odd trash can,” and players have deduced that can only mean Stelle is inside, rummaging around happily. A wonderful image from ZZZ Redditor ‘Severe_Emergency_543’ encapsulates the burgeoning fan theory.

a strange trash can in ZZZ has noises coming from it. a redditor has placed a stelle icon above it implying she's in there

It’s a sweet nod to the HoYoverse community and the stories they’ve created out of the games they love. And who knows? Further down the line we may see even more references to Stelle hiding out in the game’s trash cans – or maybe some kind of real crossover.

If you’re just getting stuck into the new game yourself, check out our Zenless Zone Zero tier list to figure out which characters you should be trying to pull. You can also find all the Zenless Zone Zero codes for the game, too.

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