Zero Parades earns positive reviews amid ZA/UM dispute

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies launched on PC this week. ZA/UM presented the title as a successor to Disco Elysium after several key creatives left the studio. On Metacritic the game holds an 83 score based on 19 reviews.

Reviews highlight the game’s writing, cast and role-playing systems. Critics noted the game is text-heavy and frames a spy story around political ideas and character drama. Several reviews said the game’s systems create meaningful player choice.

Several reviewers pointed to the Exert and encounter systems as mechanical elements that interrupt long passages of text and increase conflict in gameplay. A number of reviews described the design as leaning toward tabletop role-playing sensibilities.

Scores in the early reviews ranged from a perfect score by one reviewer to multiple 8/10 ratings and several scores in the 4 to 4.5 out of 5 range; one review rated the game 3.5 out of 5.

Critical remarks centered on comparisons to Disco Elysium. Some reviewers wrote parts of Zero Parades felt familiar or cautious and that several story threads do not reach their potential. Others described the game as a lesser echo of the studio’s earlier title.

One reviewer wrote, ‘It is a narrative distillation of the familiar into a messy, painful journey that feels, at turns, cinematic and mundane, sharp and silly – a fine-tuned caricature of humanity’s petty, poisoned psyche, a game made with care, for only the finest sickos.’ Another reviewer described Zero Parades as among 2026’s notable games.

ZA/UM has continued to market Zero Parades as part of the same creative lineage as Disco Elysium. Observers and some fans criticized that positioning because several prominent contributors left the company after the original game’s success.

Zero Parades is available on PC. A PlayStation 5 release is scheduled for later this year. The Metacritic score remains 83 based on 19 reviews.