CEO Nam-seok Kim: It is not a matter of simply swapping from five teams to four; we completely overhauled the entire map to better highlight the identity of ZETA. We made the change to enhance the density and pacing of team fights, and to design calculable pathing that makes reading the map a bit easier. Since we noticed that players could strategize much more accurately based on solid information derived from map reading when there were four teams, we likely won't revert to five teams.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: Targeting the prism-carrying team purely through player kills is theoretically possible and remains a partially valid strategy. However, we grant quite powerful buffs or progression elements to the team that secures the final kill during the process of acquiring prisms or fighting over major objectives. If you only focus on hunting down the team transporting the prism, your combat power will eventually fall behind due to the objective reward gap. While the first two prisms can be easily deposited, the remaining three ultimately require strengthening through kills. Without gaining objective advantages, securing the final three points becomes an uphill battle. We are designing it so players can adopt different strategies depending on the situation.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: We tested with 14 heroes in the first test, added 2 more for this second test bringing the total to 16, and we expect around 17 heroes at launch. Given our past experience of updating a character every two weeks in our previous work, we plan to handle hero updates as agilely as possible.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: It is true that balancing becomes tricky when a diverse roster of heroes exists, but there are various strategies you can pull off depending on hero compositions. Naturally, matchups have their own rock-paper-scissors dynamics, and since there are four teams, we believe they will ultimately keep each other in check. We plan to fine-tune the balance while keeping the intricate dynamics of multiple teams in mind.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: The one thing that plagued players the most during the first test was the desire for a fair match experience. When an early resource gap widened, many complained about suffering as it snowballed until the very end. To address this, we separated solo queue and party queues as much as possible, implemented skill-bracket matchmaking, and introduced early safe zones to ease the learning curve so players can experience the true flavor of ZETA more intensely. Additionally, we added mechanics where the leading team slides down faster—meaning if the team in the lead holds the prism, it dissipates quicker to give the trailing teams a better chance as the match progresses.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: It is a system where instantly wiping out all three members of an opposing team revives the fallen players right on the spot, resetting all team members' skill cooldowns and health pools to 100%. Players often tend to play overly cautiously, avoiding combat and hunting for so-called 'backstabbing' opportunities. We introduced Fighting Spirit so they can boldly eliminate opponents and follow up by taking down incoming reinforcements. We implemented it so that intuitive and flashy PvP plays are properly rewarded.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: We don't necessarily believe that a third-person view has to be hyper-fast. Project ZETA requires reading the battlefield flow and dodging enemy skills. If the gameplay involves zipping around at blistering speeds while tracing crosshairs, a player's flashy moments depend entirely on raw aim twitching. When you pull the camera back in those fast-moving scenarios, the screen spins too rapidly, which we felt makes it unengaging as an esports spectator sport. If the battle state shifts too fast, nobody can read what is happening. We believe esports works best when you can actually see who used what skill, how they dodged it, and how they landed it.

We did receive feedback that the basic attack feel was sluggish, so we plan to adjust the basic attack animations and timing to suit a back-view action game, while also slightly trimming down the dash cooldowns. However, turning it into a hyper-hero shooter would mean losing the true identity of Project ZETA, so we won't go down that road.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: Our ambitious goal is to set the frequency of early extractions for the first-place team very low. Even with a well-polished matchmaking system, skill disparities occasionally slip through, but in well-balanced matches, it doesn't happen even once in ten games. Should it occur, we are working on mitigating the emptiness of an unavoidable early extraction by compressing the remaining phases or introducing a unanimous voting feature. We are creating plenty of stumbling blocks for the leading team so they can keep fighting for the top spot until the very end.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: To ensure second place retains its meaning when an early extraction happens, normal matches reward both 1st and 2nd place with ranking points while deducting them from 3rd and 4th place, ensuring that placing 2nd remains a meaningful outcome.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: I cannot say for certain. Since 'League of Legends' has held the number one spot for roughly 15 years, I believe it's about time for something fresh to emerge. Previous attempts to interpret the MOBA genre through a battle royale lens combined limited lives with hero progression, which inevitably forced players into playing passively and strayed from the genre's core fun.

Ultimately, the alternative will be a game where players can frequently and densely experience the core thrill of smart progression followed by bold team fights within a short timeframe. Success requires a ton of luck, but the key is simply hanging in there until it clicks. Even with plenty of flaws and shortcomings, we are increasing our success rate by showcasing our progress through open development.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: If the camera and character directions are strictly locked together, you have to spin the camera while kiting and readjust it when attacking, which I disliked. I wanted the camera to stay fixed while the character moves according to the battle flow, allowing players to focus on enemy attacks and execute evasive maneuvers. It's not standard shooter grammar, but it's a common convention in general action games.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: Following a traditional top-down perspective lowers the ceiling for proactive, flashy plays where you assess the battlefield to target alternative angles. In Project ZETA, players can pull off stunts rarely seen in typical TPS or FPS games—such as pretending to run away, turning to face an enemy assassin, and knocking them back, or hunting down a different target. While the difficulty goes up, the returns are greater, offering a higher ceiling for standout plays which we hope will create a virtuous cycle feeding into a thriving user pool.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: While we are improving communication tools like pings, voice chat, and UI/UX elements, ultimately the only solution is improving teamwork and individual skill. However, the improved navigation markers displayed on the ground have resolved many of the issues where users used to wander around cluelessly about where to go. Splitting up to farm solo and deciding when to group up is always an option. It's a continuous question of when to group, and there is no single correct answer. Of course, the core gameplay of Project ZETA is built around experiencing the depth of subsequent stages through the sheer fun of combat.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: Our game features many skills and systems used to deduce enemy positions and situations, making a form of information warfare viable. If your opinions clash and a teammate heads off to fight a boss alone, you can farm during the opening, pull that teammate back in using the long-range revival system to force a reunion, and intercept the enemy just as they are about to deposit a prism—utilizing various permutations. While extreme disagreements cannot always be resolved, we strive to guarantee a baseline of fun through strategies that overcome those hurdles.

Creative Director Joon-sung Kwon: Bridging the gap between control schemes is crucial. Project ZETA lacks micro-aiming or headshots, making movement and responding to enemy skills paramount. In that regard, controllers—which allow 360-degree stick movement—can actually have an advantage in mobility. We also have an aim-assist system that nudges the reticle toward initial enemy positions, making it more accessible on gamepads. Internal playtests among our staff have confirmed that quite a few heroes are entirely viable on controllers when matched against keyboard and mouse users.

CEO Nam-seok Kim: The Steam (PC) version remains our primary focus, and controller usage sits below 10%. Depending on the player, when pushing to the skill ceiling, I believe melee characters are vastly superior on controllers compared to keyboard and mouse. Even during testing, we received feedback that it fits gamepads remarkably well for a hero shooter.