The Infinite Abyss is a special stage in Zenless Zone Zero, where you are tasked with delving as far down as you can go into a nearly endless level. What can stop you from doing this is Corruption. Here’s what you’ll need to reach the very end of the Infinite Abyss.
How to finish the Infinite Abyss in Zenless Zone Zero
So, the Infinite Abyss isn’t actually infinite. There are 99 floors in total, but each one gets progressively more difficult to progress through, making it difficult to reach the final floor. This is because of the Corruption mechanic that has been present since the very beginning of Zenless Zone Zero. Where Corruption was, at best, a minor nuance everywhere else in the game, in the Infinite Abyss, it is the mechanic that can end your run. Once you reach five Corruption, you are automatically pulled from the Infinite Abyss, and your run is considered a failure. To reach the 99th floor, you need to perfectly manage your Pressure.
For the sake of clarity before jumping into the strategy, Pressure is gained when you move over red tiles or move over tiles with something inside that is not related to Pressure reduction. Clear titles, or tiles you’ve already gone over will not increase Pressure. These aspects are super important for Corruption management, so commit them to memory if you haven’t already.
Conquering the Infinite Abyss
You begin the Infinite Abyss on Floor 1 and are given a special item called a Navigator Beacon. First, understand that each time you reach the next exit area, you’re going down an additional floor. As such, your goal is to reach each of these exit areas on every floor until you reach Floor 99.
You want to do this on every floor while gaining as little Pressure as possible. You will inevitably get some Corruptions as you progress. To mitigate the damage, you should always be planning your route to go through Rest Areas on each floor.
Note that only Rest Areas with blue on the tile will reduce your Pressure. Rest Areas that are green will restore health to your Agents instead. Avoid these unless you need to get your Agents back into fighting shape, because stepping on them will increase your Pressure and put you that much closer to getting a Corruption.
Not every floor will have a blue Rest Area that you can navigate to. This situation can occur several times in a row, but fortunately, you can do something about this. At least one Navigator Beacon is given to you every time you progress to a new floor. These are items that allow you to take a snapshot of a tile you’re on, and copy it to the next floor. This works for almost every type of tile except for hostile ones like enemies. To use a Navigator Beacon, step on the tile you wish to copy and use the beacon from your items inventory.
The tile you copied will appear somewhere on the next floor. For example, if you copy a blue Rest Area, that tile will be on the next floor. However, you cannot determine exactly where. It is always random, but you can plan your route to the next exit based on where these tiles appear. You can do this as many times as you like on as many tiles as you prefer, so long as you have a Navigator Beacon to make use of. Using Navigator Beacons on blue Rest Areas is crucial to reaching the 99th floor of the Infinite Abyss.
When you reach Floor 5, you’ll encounter your first enemy on the floor. This enemy is your standard Hollow encounter and it must be killed to progress to the next floor. You’ll encounter floors like this every five floors.
You’ll also be allowed to remove a Corruption for a gold coin cost, though you should rarely need to do this if you’re plotting your routes carefully and making good use of Navigator Beacons. Additionally, every five floors will reward you with guaranteed blue Rest Areas, so you can plan around knowing that as well
Finally, be aware that almost every floor following Floor 5 will have enemies on them, and that you should avoid them at all costs. Unlike the rest of Zenless Zone Zero, fighting enemies in the Infinite Abyss does not reward you with anything. Instead, they increase your Pressure, which is not good. They are not worth facing, so plan around avoiding them unless you have no choice but to fight to reach the next floor.
Beyond enemies, you also want to avoid tiles that contain pure evil. These are tiles that, if you step on them, are designed to give you large amounts of Pressure which is not a good thing. You can very often identify these ‘evil’ tiles by their very blatant hostile color scheme (Red and Purple), and the fact that they literally say ‘Danger’ on them.
You now almost have everything you need to reach the 99th floor of the Infinite Abyss, but there are a few more things that can potentially make your journey a bit easier. First, there is an item you can pick up called Concentrated Sedative, which reduces your Pressure by 40.
Like any other item, they can be held on to and used when necessary. This is huge, because these items effectively are mobile Rest Areas you can use whenever you like. Even more important, though, is these items can be copied to the next floor using a Navigator Beacon. In the beginning, Concentrated Sedatives are quite rare, but as you progress deeper into the Infinite Abyss, they will become more common.
Lastly, be on the lookout for Explorer Tiles as you progress. These are tiles that, when you step on them, force you to speak with an NPC also in the Infinite Abyss. This NPC will offer to guide you to the exit on your current floor, often for a gold price tag, but sometimes for free.
If you accept this offer, the NPC will move to the floor exit, clearing all Pressure-gaining tiles in his path, in the process. This is significant, as it means you won’t gain any Pressure following the Explorer’s route. Even bigger, the Explorer is a tile, meaning you can, once again, make good use of a Navigator Beacon so he appears on the very next floor. The only caveat to finding the Explorer is that he shares visual imagery with several other NPCs in the Infinite Abyss, ones you don’t really need or want to interact with.
With this knowledge imparted upon you, you now have all that you need to reach the end of the Infinite Abyss. Reaching Floor 99 will take a significant amount of time due to all the planning involved, so make sure that when you start this journey, you have the time to see its conclusion.
How to unlock the Infinite Abyss in Zenless Zone Zero
To even attempt the Infinite Abyss, you must reach the requirement to do so. To unlock it, you must reach Inter-Knot Rank 40 first. Reaching that rank, you’ll be allowed to take the Infinite Abyss side quest from a Hollow Investigator hanging around Sixth Street. If you do not see him, try resting in your bed then check outside the entrance to your video store. Once you have the quest, you can start it from your console like you would any other quest.
