The Mega Man Zero series, known as Rockman Zero (ロックマンゼロ Rokkuman Zero?) in Japan, is a series in Capcom's Mega Man video game franchise. It was developed by Inti Creates, with Co-Producer Keiji Inafune and Director Yoshinori Kawano. The series consists of four games that were first released on the Game Boy Advance and later on the Nintendo DS and the Virtual Console (Wii U).
The story plays a century after the Mega Man X storyline and follows the re-awakened Zero, who is fighting in a war between humans and Reploids. Reploids are self-conscious, human-like robots, who are oppressed by mankind due to a worldwide energy shortage. Zero, together with the human Reploid engineer Ciel, helps the Reploid resistance survive and fights against other reploids send by mankind. However, this is only the setup for the story and events change drastically throughout the series.
Similar to the Mega Man X series, the Mega Man Zero series is a two-dimensional action platform game with run and gun elements that places a heavy emphasis on memorizing boss patterns and selecting the correct weapons to use against enemies.
Unlike previous series, the stages of Mega Man Zero are inside of areas that are part of a larger map, and the player could freely explore these areas once the respective mission(s) in each area is completed. However, Mega Man Zero 2 and later entries removed this and returned to the standard format that allowed the player to select a mission from a stage select screen.