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.
Described as a “grand spy RPG”, Zero Parades casts players as “brilliant, burnt-out, possibly cursed” operant Hershel Wilk, alias CASCADE, five years after a disasterous mission that saw him lead his team “into the abyss”. There’s talk of operant skills, dramatic encounters, and inner voices which might not be entirely reliable as Wilk is sent on a mysterious assignment that might given him a chance to prove himself again.
ZA/UM has confirmed Zero Parades will be Steam Deck Verified on release, so players can “fight transnational capital on the go”. For those who don’t fancy the game on Steam, GOG and Epic Games Store versions will also be available. A PS5 version will launch at a later date.
While Zero Parades’ voice over will remain solely in English, the writing will be localised into English, German, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Latin America). Additional languages will come following its launch, as well as a PS5 version. These include French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.
“It took nearly five years to deliver the full slate of localisations for Disco Elysium,” ZA/UM studio head Allen Murray wrote in a statement, “and our players deserved better than that. This time, we’re launching with five languages on day one and committing to a faster cadence. Additional language support begins rolling out at the end of 2026 and continues through 2027. We want every player to experience Zero Parades in their language – and we don’t want them waiting half a decade for it.”
Zero Parades: For Dead Spies was unveiled at Gamescom Opening Night Live last year, and has since tempted fans of ZA/UM’s prior work with a demo and tantalising trailers. The current ZA/UM team are not the only crew working to capture the soul of the beloved Disco Elysium, however. Many of its original developers have formed new studios following a public, vicious fallout at ZA/UM, which resulted in legal battles, as well as a wave of layoffs.
There’s developer Red Info, staffed by Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov from the original team, as well as developer Longdue. The latter was formed back in 2024 by leads of a cancelled Disco Elysium sequel, and is currently working on a “psychogeographic RPG”. Then, of course, there’s Dark Math Games, where OG Disco devs Timo Albert and Kaur Kender work. This team has announced third-person RPG Tangerine Antarctic, formerly XXX Nightshift (I liked the old name!). And finally, there’s Summer Eternal, which was founded by Argo Tuulik and features the talented voice actor Lenval Brown alongside other respected developers.
All the projects we’ve seen so far look wonderful – so for lovers of well-written RPGs this is all very much a ‘Two Cakes’ situation. Zero Parades: For Dead Spies crossing the finish line first just means ZA/UM is the first studio to cut us a slice.
