Hoyoverse, the absolutely massive game development studio and publisher behind global hits like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, knows how to turn up the horny dial. Whether it was the absurd boob jiggle physics when Genshin launched, or the heart throbs of Tears of Themis, Hoyoverse has never shied away from making lustful characters. But now, with the introduction of Jane Doe in Zenless Zone Zero, the studio known for being pretty horny has seemingly outhornied itself.
Jane Doe is an S-rank physical anomaly character running in the second half of the 1.1 patch of Zenless Zone Zero. She is also very hot, like in a stereotypical way. Her high-waisted shorts (which are layered over ripped tights) accentuate what is maybe the most dramatic hip-to-waist ratio I’ve seen in a game in a long time. Other features of her design, like a little devil tail that wraps around her leg, aim to provoke plenty of lust from fans. On Aug. 30, developer Hoyoverse released a character demo trailer for her and well… it’s so horny that it inspired both simps and critics alike to comment.
The trailer goes through a scenario where a character is being interrogated by Jane Doe. The character, who sits strapped in a chair, pants and breathes heavily as Jane taunts them in a sexualized manner. Jane lowers her face in-between the character’s legs and shoves an apple in the character’s throat — and it’s all framed from a first-person perspective, so it gives the effect of her doing it to the viewer. Now, both the trailer and character have inspired mixed responses from fans.
Some people are already worshipping Jane and TikTok is filled with fan edits of her. One video edit, that has more than 3 million views, is filled with commenters screaming about wanting to “save hex” with her — phrasing that people use to avoid moderation parameters on TikTok. A short clip showing Jane walking also inspired feral responses from fans, with one person saying, “brother the thigh physics are diabolical what the hell.”
However, others aren’t so happy with the character. For some players, the design of the character was fine, but they didn’t like how she was portrayed in the video. Others questioned Hoyoverse for using the sexualized trailer to market on TikTok. The developers uploaded the trailer to the official Zenless Zone Zero account and one of the top comments, that was liked more than 2,200 times, said, “the animation is so good bro but what exactly is the creative team thinking making a character that acts like this.”
Then there are the people who are just plain upset. In a video viewed more than 186,000 times, a person layered text over a clip of her trailer and said, “can’t protect [Zenless Zone Zero] anywmore, this trailer is straight up disgusting.”
Hoyoverse is accustomed to courting controversy with its character designs. When the game launched in 2020, people criticized the boob jiggle physics in Genshin Impact and the developers added alternate outfits for four of its characters that covered up more of their skin. But it’s also a company whose fans really do just like to thirst over so many of its characters. The company has always had to navigate a fine line between creating beloved, and sometimes sexy characters, without overdoing the sexual elements. Now, it just seems like Zenless Zone Zero is going to go all in on these parts of the fandom.