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Disco Elysium is one of the most celebrated video games in recent memory. A deep, cerebral detective story set in a world inspired by post-Soviet Europe. But after its creator, ZA/UM Studios, imploded amid internal strife, hopes for a sequel, or any follow-up games, were left in doubt.
A mobile adaptation of Disco launched to tepid reception. Now, however, there’s new hope for the gaming studio’s future after the reveal of Zero Parades. We joined a presentation on the evening of Sep. 17 by producer Jess Crawford and VO director and writer Jim Ashilevi, who introduced the game, its protagonist Hershel Wilk, and what they called their “formal reveal.”
If Zero Parades looks somewhat familiar, it’s because ZA/UM isn’t straying far from its roots. While Disco Elysium was an introspective police investigation, Zero Parades is a tense spy thriller. It remains a CRPG, but with espionage and stealth as the central mechanics.
In the new game, you’ll play as Hershel Wilk, codename Cascade, a spy attempting to rebuild her old crew for a new mission. Hershel is a spy for Opera, the intelligence bureau of communist power The Superbloc. Opera’s spies are known as operants, a play on both “operator” and “opera,” hinting at espionage as performance. And this performative edge will run through the entire game.
Unfortunately, the ties to Disco Elysium begin and end with ZA/UM’s involvement. The two games don’t share a universe or story connections, and outside of possible Easter eggs, Zero Parades stands entirely on its own.
Zero Parades gameplay (Image Credit ZA/UM)
Talking during their recent presentation, the developers cited a range of influences for Zero Parades. Classic spy novels were central, particularly John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People. The team also leaned heavily into science fiction, citing Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, and Stanisław Lem as inspirations. These futuristic elements add the surreal, offbeat qualities that shape Zero Parades.
Visually, the team looked to Korean cinema, especially the films of Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave, Oldboy). Hershel herself, a disgraced spy coping with mundanity, also echoes the tone of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses/Slough House novels, which the team confirmed as a key influence.
Other inspirations are woven directly into gameplay. One of Herschel’s skills reflects a technophile’s fascination with retro devices: tape decks, clacking buttons, and analog mechanisms inside digital products. She also has a love for obscure musical records, rare paraphernalia, and kitsch collectibles, which feel like extensions of the developers’ own obsessions. All this helps build into a weird, slightly nostalgic look.
“We would describe her as brilliant and relentless and magnetic, and yet she is fatally flawed,” explained Crawford. “One thing we wanted when creating Hershel is for her to be the anti-James Bond.”
According to ZA/UM, Zero Parades is foremost a story about failure and what follows after. Much like Harry Du Bois in Disco Elysium, Hershel is defined by failure. She betrayed her old team after a mission collapsed, and five years before the events of the game, she was stationed in Portofiro. There, she built a crew, gathered intel, and ran classic spy operations. When her cover was blown, she escaped only by betraying her team. For that, she was sidelined by her organization, Opera, for half a decade.
Zero Parades’ Hershel Wilk (Image Credit ZA/UM)
But unlike Du Bois, Hershel is capable. She’s not going to let a dead body hang in a tree for three days. For one, in her story, there simply isn’t time. The stakes are higher, the enemies more dangerous, and the time constraints are higher.
The developers emphasized that Hershel is “not a Bond. She’s not Jason Bourne.”
“She’s not an action hero who can do everything alone. She needs a crew… She’s seeing if she can mend these relationships after betraying people so horribly. And there will be times when she just can’t. If she can’t mend those relationships, can she reconcile with herself after that?”
This focus on failure and reconciliation is what ZA/UM want to make the emotional core of Zero Parades.
The game’s setting is an era called “The End of History,” inspired by 1990s pop philosophy, particularly Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man.
“We have been heavily influenced by the aesthetics of the 90s,” Ashilevi said. “The gadgets and the tech are clearly 90s-inspired. You see analog and early digital technology coexisting. But it’s not just the aesthetics or tech. It’s also the historical and philosophical mood. In the 90s, the End of History was a huge headline.”
In Zero Parades’ End of History, three global powers vie for dominance. The Superbloc is a communist union, and Hershel works as one of its operants. Opposing it is La Luz, a techno-fascist regime. A third power is a powerful international development bank that uses loans and investments to exert influence as a political bloc in its own right.
Zero Parades End of History (Image Credit ZA/UM)
These three factions have “locked horns” on the island city-state of Portofiro, where most of the game unfolds. The echoes of Disco Elysium’s Revachol and Le Caillou are hard to miss in Portofiro, although we also felt it was more of a Casablanca or Mos Eisley.
“Portofiro is a sovereign nation, seemingly independent from the big players. But historically, all of them have wounded Portofiro in a very tragic way. So the vibe, the mood and atmosphere in Portofiro is pretty glum,” Ashilevi said.
From what we’ve seen, Zero Parades promises an immersive and ambitious world. Developers showcased gameplay, though much of the most interesting parts of it remain under embargo for now. We’ll cover that in the future.
It will be impossible to satisfy every fan of Disco Elysium, a transformative and culturally significant game. Still, Zero Parades looks set to deliver another layered character study set in a world with rich detail and philosophical depth, and we’re excited to see where it leads.
Featured image credits: ZA/UM
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