ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

Strong · 67 reviews · 17 articles · May 21, 2026

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ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies news

2 months after releasing Zero Parades, Studio ZA/UM is laying off employees: 'Its commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size'

Up to 32 people will be put out of work.

PC Gamer / Andy Chalk

Business

Dang, I can't hang with the Wang in Zero Parades, so ZA/UM's thought violation gun won't stop going bang

I’ve been a super sorry spy again. THAT’S AGAINST YOUR AGREEMENT, Mr Wang shouts in text form, subsequently yanking away the bonuses afforded to me by my decision to adopt the Wang way. I didn’t think working the Wang into my thang would be this stressful, to be honest.

Rock Paper Shotgun / Mark Warren

Preview

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies review

ZA/UM's espionage RPG doesn't quite sell its spy story.

PC Gamer / Maddi Chilton

Review

Round Up: Disco Elysium's Controversial 'Sequel' Met with Rave Reviews

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies reviews are in. Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is out this week on PC, and so critic reviews are starting to trickle in. It was always going to be interesting to see how this one's received, since it's technically the successor to Disco Elysium — one of the most highly regarded RPGs of the last decade or so. Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Push Square

Roundup

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies review

One of the first things I learn about myself in Zero Parades is that I'm a fuck-up – an omnishambling bad omen with cropped hair and unfair cheekbones. Before I was put on ice, I was supposedly one hell of a spy. But that was then, and this is now. The veteran spy fallen from grace is not a new story, but in careful hands, it is almost always a great one. There are so many tiny little things that go right and wrong for an agent in the field: an indifferent tsunami of luck and skill and wildcard

Eurogamer / Alexis Ong

Review

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies Review – Cascading Choices

Following up a game as lauded as Disco Elysium would be an unenviable task for any developer, but especially one as fractured as ZA/UM. With many of the key creative minds behind the detective RPG separated from the studio following an ugly, and very public, legal dispute, it's up to those left behind to pick up the pieces. That's a lot of baggage to carry going into a brand-new, albeit familiar, game, so it's not surprising how ZA/UM has tried to distance itself from too many comparisons with i

GameSpot / Richard Wakeling

Review

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is both bootleg Disco Elysium and a spirited interrogation of fake culture in all its guises

For many players, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies will never be anything other than a seedy clone of ZA/UM's reputation-making Disco Elysium – a soul-sucking forgery of a doomy leftist masterpiece, whose original lead writers and designers have been ousted by scheming executives. It's appropriate then, that, Zero Parades proves obsessed with clones, forgeries, bootlegs, and the ways in which these entities can be wielded for erasure and displacement. Its opening third is a comical squabble over not

Rock Paper Shotgun / Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Review

Disco Elysium dev's highly-anticipated follow-up, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, has things to say about our nostalgia

The Bootleg Bazaar in Portofiro is a chimera of ex-Soviet bloc organisms that have nestled together in a robust show of scrappy, second-hand capitalism at its finest. It's an entity I have mostly understood from movies and television and books, and a fairly problematic Russian neighbour in college who enjoyed throwing knives at his closet door for fun (I believe he is now married and owns a paper factory).

Eurogamer / Alexis Ong

Preview

Disco Elysium Follow-Up Remains Both Promising and Controversial in Latest PS5 Glimpse

Meet the cast ahead of release. ZA/UM will never be able to shake the controversies surrounding its internal leadership and who's actually making Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, following the fallout of its critically-acclaimed Disco Elysium's release. Therefore, it will hope the spiritual successor does the talking for it when it initially launches for PC and then comes to PS5 later this year, with an experience extremely reminiscent of Disco Elysium. More details have been shared today on the Pl

Push Square

Announcement

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies – Meet the whole sick cast of characters

Hey everyone! We’re really excited to be back on PlayStation Blog with a brand new trailer for Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. Last year in September’s State of Play, we showed off some of the gameplay features that set Zero Parades apart. Today, we want to shed some first light onto the characters at the […]

PlayStation Blog / Sven Paluch

Trailer

Disco Elysium's Controversial Successor Commits to 2026 Release on PS5

Out on PC in May. Zero Parades: For Dead Spies now has a confirmed release date. At least, on PC, where it launches on the 21st May. However, alongside that date, developer ZA/UM has reiterated that the RPG is still on track for a 2026 release on PS5 — it's just going to land a bit later in the year. Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Push Square

Release date

Zero Parades, the spy game from Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, is coming in May

The Steam Next Fest demo is still up too—ZA/UM says it'll be available to play until April 13.

PC Gamer / Andy Chalk

Release date

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is the first Disco Elysium successor to get a release date, will finally be playable this summer

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies - the much-anticipated espionage RPG from some of the developers behind Disco Elysuim - finally has a release date. It launches for PC on 21st May.

Eurogamer / Connor Makar

Release date

The discourse machine whirs to life as Zero Parades: For Dead Spies gets a May release date

If you're looking to fit in a break from social media discourse in the near future, it's looking like May is going to be a good time for it. That's because ZA/UM's followup to Disco Elysium, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, is launching around then. And what better a game to post about than one which has a studio embroiled in a whole heap of mess.

Rock Paper Shotgun / Oisin Kuhnke

Release date