Zero Parades: For Dead Spies – Everything we know about Disco Elysium’s successor

This article contains officially confirmed information combined with expert industry speculation, rumors, and analysis. We will update this page with the latest news as soon as it’s available.

✓ VideoGamer Summary

• With Zero Parades, ZA/UM returns to give us another narrative-heavy CRPG adventure set to release in 2026.
• While looking very similar, this spiritual sequel focuses heavily on a spy-flavoured story with a focus on international espionage.
• The mechanics seem mostly the same, but with new skills and the need to now track a new stat called delirium, as well as your health and anxiety.
• Zero Parades For Dead Spies is heavily inspired by Disco Elysium, even down to its urban industrial setting and familiar-feeling protagonist.
• For now, the game looks to be more grounded, but the strange setting descriptions and focus on identity mean it could be just as cerebral as its inspirations.

Zero Parades For Dead Spies is developer ZA/UMs’ latest project, intended to be the second main release after Disco Elysium back in October 2019. Disco Elysium was an industry-shaking success, and it’s no surprise that the studio would be putting out a spiritual sequel. Naturally, expectations are high for Zero Parades and ZA/UM.

The trailers showcase a desire to recapture the Disco Elysium magic and once again fill that space with captivating offbeat style, tabletop-inspired dice-roll mechanics, and a protagonist that no one seems to fully trust to do the job right. We’ll keep an eye out to see if lightning strikes twice; read on to find out what Zero Parades For Dead Spies has in store for you.

Expected Zero Parades release window

According to the Zero Parades For Dead Spies trailer and the PlayStation Blog, the game is set to release in 2026 on PS5. This release date window will also likely extend to the PC game release. 

Fully speculating, the Disco Elysium – The Final Cut trailer was released in December 2020 and had a release date of March 2021. Since Zero Parades For Dead Spies has no release date in its trailer (itself released in September 2025), we are likely looking at the second half of 2026 for a full release. If Zero Parades was really aiming to ape Disco Elysium’s original release, we’d be looking at October 2026.

Zero Parades gameplay and trailer analysis

Looking at the gameplay trailer, you can really feel the desire to resurrect the spirit of Disco Elysium. It offers a similar kind of isometric view through which you might run around another urban-industrial playground. However, Zero Parades does seem to use a graphical style that’s brighter and more grounded. 

The gameplay also uses that familiar rolling of two dice to determine the outcome of skill checks, but with some changes from the Disco Elysium skills. We’re seeing new, intriguing skill names like Doppelgäng, Sensors, and Technoflex. 

Our protagonist, Herschel Wilk, is marked as a failure and is noted as being a ‘pathetic, fragile embarrassment’ by the Soviet spy-esque narrators. We once again are going to be dropped into the role of the professional underdog extraordinaire who nonetheless gets the job done, even if they burn all their bridges along the way. This can be seen with the new Tactical View, where Herschel can use her expertise to quickly plan out her actions in a sequence of skill checks for different outcomes.

The UI looks familiar as well, but has different stats to track compared to Disco Elysium. Instead of health, you have fatigue, and instead of stress, you now have anxiety. These will likely need to be managed, lest Herschel become overwhelmed. There is a new tracker known as Delirium, which, alongside the new system of Conditioning, allows you to shape Hershel’s identity. 

Zero Parades expected price

Disco Elysium – The Final Cut retails for $40 (£35). We should probably expect a similar price point for Zero Parades For Dead Spies. 

Prices for games have certainly gone up in the last few years, but ZA/UM is releasing a niche game into a market with a somewhat hostile fanbase, so it is unlikely to want to put the price up any higher than it needs to. 

Zero Parades’ story and setting

Zero Parades For Dead Spies seems to be set in a world tied to the vibes of the Cold War. Hershel Wilk is a failed spy brought back for another mission, a disposable asset for a shadowy agency with vaguely Russian accents. 

As well as loyalists and agitators, you’ll face off against bankers, techno-fascists, and psychic doppelgängers. We’re exploring an exaggerated political playground, with what feels like Cyberpunk vibes, where you’re facing off against both more grounded espionage and surrealist elements. The city where the game takes place feels dilapidated and grimy, and acts as a beautiful backdrop for the background factions to clash together. 

How does Zero Parades compare with Disco Elysium?

With its upcoming release, a Zero Parades and Disco Elysium comparison would always be inevitable. At first glance, you would assume that it was the same team making the game. However, ZA/UM has returned without the leads for Disco Elysium, and that team has recently unionised, so players can have more assurances of the stability of the company as well as better treatment of its workers.

Zero Parades For Dead Spies seems to be taking the Disco Elysium formula and escalating, going from police work to spy work, but also keeping its feet planted when it comes to style and gameplay. 

For now, Zero Parades seems less dreamlike than its predecessor. Character portraits and other Disco Elysium art were often abstract, defined by how both Harry DuBois saw them and how they saw themselves. Here, the portraits are far more grounded, owing to the theme skewing to spy work over a messed-up buddy cop story. 

Our new protagonist, Herschel Wilk, also brings a similar vibe to Harry DuBois. Both are exceptionally skilled people haunted by their failures. Their identities also seem to be core aspects of both games. In Disco Elysium, you were able to adapt and change Harry’s psyche because he hollowed himself out with amnesia. 

In Zero Parades, Herschel seems to be adaptable because of her espionage training, allowing you to apply training to change who she is and how she operates. Being a spy, becoming someone else entirely is part of the job, and it seems Herschel may struggle to keep herself together when she does.

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