Disco Elysium’s spiritual successor can’t escape its phantoms

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Entertainment EntertainmentPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Entertainment Gaming GamingPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Gaming Games Review Games ReviewPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All Games ReviewDisco Elysium’s spiritual successor can’t escape its phantomsZero Parades: For Dead Spies carries the ZA/UM name, but the studio has changed a lot since its previous hit. by Diego Nicolás Argüello Diego Nicolás ArgüelloPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Diego Nicolás ArgüelloMay 18, 2026, 10:00 AM UTC Image: ZA/UMZero Parades: For Dead Spies wants you to question the price of forgiveness.

Technical Details

After leading a crew of spies through a failed operation, protagonist Cascade is willing to pay whatever amount is needed to reestablish contact not just with fellow agents, but with the friends she let down. After being “frozen” for five years and forced to do desk work, Cascade is sent to the city of Portofiro with an assignment and a chance to redeem herself. Zero Parades highly resembles Disco Elysium, the critically acclaimed 2019 RPG featuring a disastrous detective dealing with generational heartbreak and a hangover that split his psyche into dozens of voices in his head.

On paper, this makes sense — both games were made by the same studio, ZA/UM. But the ZA/UM that released Disco Elysium and the one that exists now are very different studios. This is all because, over the last seven years, the current ZA/UM and some of its founding members, who were dismissed from the studio in 2022, have been in a seemingly endless dispute.

It has involved a court ruling, allegations that ZA/UM stole the Disco Elysium IP from the people who were pivotal in its creation, alleged misconduct by key members of the team, the aftermath of what’s described as a grueling development driven by overtime, and community outrage deeming the people who are still at ZA/UM to be scabs, reportedly going as far as receiving death threats. Because of this, Zero Parades carries heavy baggage. It’s also impossible to divorce it from the shadow of Disco Elysium.

Industry Implications

From a design perspective, it takes almost every feature and standout mechanic of its predecessor as a foundation. Perhaps more notably, the fictional story, whether deliberate or not, seems to reflect the real-world situation. This baggage weighs Zero Parades down to the point that it can’t match its predecessor, nor forge its own identity.

It all starts by asking what kind of spy you are. You can either pick from preselected archetypes or invest your own points across 15 skills.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.