Zenless Zone Zero × Yadea Collaboration Blowup: How a "Smooth Combo" Played Players Like Cards
In July 2026, a collaboration between a certain EV brand and Zenless Zone Zero suffered a series of mishaps during the promotional execution phase, dubbed a “blowup” by players. On the surface, it looks like a low-level partnership mistake, but when you connect the dots, it resembles a tightly interlinked operational chain – and players, from start to finish, were just cards being played.
The Phenomenon: What Happened
An objective description of the core events of this collaboration blowup, without moral judgment.
Splash screen ads “disappeared.” The four-day splash screen ads purchased by the EV brand were nearly invisible to most players, requiring repeated app restarts and luck to see. A substantial advertising investment yielded almost zero results.
Competitor asset “accidentally appeared.” A top cosplayer with 1.8 million followers featured the current character form from a competing game in their collaboration promotional post, along with a 20-second video. This wasn’t just wearing the wrong outfit – in the gacha game context, using a collaboration for Game A to funnel traffic to a character from Game B is blatant poaching.
Silent treatment escalated tensions. The involved influencer didn’t clarify immediately. Instead, they aggressively patrolled the comments section, deleting criticism and remaining silent, then quickly deleted the video. This “pretend nothing happened” approach became the fuel that ignited community anger.
A single mistake isn’t scary; what’s scary is the response to the mistake, which looks like a rehearsed procedure.
Analysis: How This “Operational Chain” Worked
Connecting the three events reveals they aren’t three independent errors, but a logically coherent operational chain. Let’s break down its four steps.
Step One: Asset Insertion, Creating a Fait Accompli
Was featuring a competitor’s character form in the collaboration promotion “unintentional” or “intentional”? A top influencer with 1.8 million followers has a professional team vetting collaborations beforehand, and then patrols the comments after posting – this doesn’t look like a careless mistake, but rather a precise asset placement. The goal is straightforward: leverage the collaboration traffic from Game A to poach traffic for a character from Game B.
Step Two: Deleting Comments and Staying Silent, Playing the “Accidental Post” Card
After the video was posted, the influencer aggressively deleted critical comments, refused to explain, and then deleted the video. The community effect of this action is subtle: it sets up a “mistaken post” narrative, pushing all dissatisfied players into the position of “making a mountain out of a molehill” –
This makes it convenient to later bite back, blaming the players for “disrupting the community atmosphere.”
Step Three: Blaming Players, Turning the Tables
Once the “accidental post” narrative is established, the focus of public opinion shifts from “who placed the competitor’s asset” to “are players overreacting?” Since the platform controls the information channels, this narrative steering has a natural advantage. Players, as customers expressing dissatisfaction, might be labeled as “community troublemakers.”
Step Four: Long-Term Contamination, Raising Collaboration Costs
This step is the real killer. This incident will leave an impression across the entire industry: collaborating with this particular company is “prone to trouble.” All future potential cross-industry partnerships (physical brands, IP collaborations) will face additional review costs and communication friction, potentially falling through entirely. Using minimal cost (one influencer’s reputation) to precisely poison a competitor’s business collaboration – this is a “bloody good deal.”
The Audience and the Cost: Who Bears the Burden
The brilliance of this operational chain lies in this: the cost is borne by others, the benefit goes to the operator.
| Role | Cost Borne | Benefit Gained |
|---|---|---|
| Collaborating Brand (EV) | Wasted ad spend, damaged reputation | — |
| Collaborated Game (Zenless Zone Zero) | Community stirred up, cross-industry credibility questioned | — |
| Players | Emotions used as tools, complaints met with backlash | — |
| Originator of the Operational Chain | One influencer’s reputation (expendable) | Competitor’s collaboration precisely poisoned |
Both the brand and the players are victims, but they are passive throughout the entire chain. The one with real control is the party controlling the information channels and asset flow.
In an environment where players are repeatedly played like cards, what the hell does “loyalty” even mean?
How to Identify This Type of Operation
This “business warfare poisoning” tactic isn’t the first time and won’t be the last. Here are a few actionable criteria for readers:
- Look at the “precision” of the “mistake.” Ordinary mistakes are random and scattered; the “mistakes” in an operational chain precisely hit a competitor’s interests. A top influencer “just happens” to wear the current character from a competing game – this kind of coincidence warrants scrutiny.
- Look at the post-incident reaction. A genuine, unintentional mistake will involve an immediate explanation and apology; the reaction in an operational chain is deleting comments, staying silent, and pretending it was an accident – because explaining would reveal the motive.
- Look at the direction of public opinion. If the focus quickly shifts from “who did this” to “are players overreacting,” it means the blame-shifting phase has started – someone is steering the narrative.
- Look at who benefits in the long run. In the short term, it sabotages one collaboration; in the long term, it raises the collaboration barrier for a specific company. Whoever benefits long-term is the most suspicious.
A Historical Footnote
This tactic of “using channel advantages to suppress competitors” is nothing new.
Ten years ago, a certain Tencent-affiliated company operated a licensed online game based on a major franchise. Its promotional strategy wasn’t to talk about its own merits, but to subtly imply it was the “authentic” version everywhere, while simultaneously disparaging the officially released main series game as “outdated” and “not worth playing.” This propaganda even infiltrated Q&A platforms – if you asked about the main game there, a wave of accounts would tell you to play that “HD remaster.” That online game didn’t last long, but the tactic of trashing and polluting the competitive landscape was fully inherited.
The familiar tactic of trashing competitors in promotion was polished ten years ago and remains polished today. Only the battlefield changes; the logic of treating both competitors and players as consumables remains the same.
Conclusion
The core of this collaboration blowup isn’t a single influencer’s mistake or a single brand’s management oversight. It is a structurally complete operational chain – asset insertion, comment deletion disguised as an accidental post, blaming players, and long-term contamination – each step precisely serving one purpose: poisoning a competitor’s collaborative project with minimal cost.
And you, as a player, expressing your dissatisfaction is your right, not your fault. The root cause of the problem is never the person who points it out.
References (Citation Standards):
- Public apology statement from the EV brand on 2026-07-21 (removing involved content, terminating influencer partnership)
- Prioritize using archive.today / Wayback Machine snapshots to preserve the scene of the incident
- Do not link to unmasked personal social media accounts