Zenless Zone Zero Stuck on Loading? A Calm, Step-by-Step Rescue

You launch Zenless Zone Zero, the intro plays or the splash appears, and then the loading just... hangs. The spinner turns forever, New Eridu stays behind a locked shutter, and you are left watching a progress bar that forgot what it was supposed to do. It is a specific kind of frustration: not a lost fight, not a missed dodge, just waiting for a game that won't let you in. The fix path is calmer than the panic suggests, and it almost never starts with buying faster internet.

Before you start, take thirty seconds to check HoYoverse's official status page or the game's social channels. A widespread outage produces the same frozen loading screen for everyone, and no local fix applies during one. If others are playing fine, the cause is on your side — usually the connection or the client — and the steps below will get you in.

Why loading gets stuck in ZZZ

Zenless Zone Zero keeps a persistent online connection even though it is not a high-bandwidth game. Your client must complete a login and loading handshake with HoYoverse's servers, and that handshake is sensitive to stability rather than raw speed. When it breaks, the screen freezes on loading. The causes split into two groups.

Connection-side:

• An unstable network path that drops the login or loading handshake.
• A VPN or proxy forcing traffic through a route the game rejects.
• Incorrect DNS settings that prevent the client from resolving the server.
• Weak Wi-Fi or flaky mobile data.

Client-side:

• Outdated GPU drivers or an overloaded device.
• Corrupted cache or partially broken game files.
• Too many background apps freezing the client at login.

Notice what is not on the list: download speed. HoYoverse's own support frames stuck loading as a stability problem, which is why their fixes point at networks, VPNs, DNS, cache, and background processes — not at your plan's megabits.

Fix it in this order

1. Switch your network. This is the fastest diagnostic there is. If you are on Wi-Fi, drop to mobile data; if you are on mobile, try Wi-Fi. HoYoverse recommends exactly this because it instantly tells you whether your current network is the culprit. If the game loads on one but not the other, you have isolated the problem without changing a single setting.

2. Disable VPNs and proxies completely. This step surprises players, but HoYoverse explicitly names VPNs, proxies, and third-party network tools as common causes of loading and login failure. A tool that reroutes your traffic through an overloaded or incompatible path can stall the game even when the rest of your internet looks fine. Turn them off fully — not just minimized — before launching.

3. Fix your DNS. If switching networks helped but you want your main connection to work, set DNS to a public resolver such as 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 in your system or router settings. Bad DNS is a quiet, frequent cause of handshake failures.

4. Update and clear. Make sure the client is on the latest version, then clear the game cache through the launcher or in-game settings. If it still hangs, a full reinstall is the later option, not the first — try the lighter steps first.

5. Free the device. Enable high-performance mode, update GPU drivers, and close streaming apps, extra browsers, and other launchers. The loading handshake is fragile when the device is stretched thin.

Where a route optimizer fits

If you have switched networks, killed the VPN, fixed DNS, and cleared cache, yet ZZZ still stalls on your main connection, the remaining suspect is the path your ISP uses to HoYoverse's servers. On PC, GearUP Booster can take over that path with intelligent traffic analysis and route optimization, steadying the connection so the loading handshake completes. On PS5, the same improvement comes through the GearUP Booster plugin or a router-side setup rather than a desktop app; on mobile, GearUP Mobile covers the same role. Be honest about the limit: if the servers are down or your connection is offline, no optimizer opens the shutter.

Platform notes

PC, PS5, and mobile all hit this screen for the same reasons, so the network steps above apply to every version. The client-side steps differ by platform — PC focuses on drivers and background apps, mobile on free memory and a stable cellular or Wi-Fi link, and PS5 on a wired connection and system updates — but the order of thinking is identical: isolate the network first, then the client.

When to stop and ask for help

If every step fails, the problem has moved beyond the usual causes. Collect your client logs, note exactly which network you tested and what happened, and contact HoYoverse support with that detail. Treat stuck loading as a stability issue, not a speed issue, and you will usually reach New Eridu in a few minutes instead of a few wasted evenings.