Within minutes of playing the Steam Next Fest demo for Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, I'm having an anxiety attack while on the phone and having to choose a stat to permanently lower. As is true in real life. The difference between me and Cascade, the disgraced espionage agent who's come out of retirement to star in ZA/UM's RPG follow-up to the legendary Disco Elysium, is that it's a reasonable reaction to having your secret mission blow up in your face before it's even begun. Just two hours in, Zero Parades is feeling like a worthy successor, and I'm feeling a little foolish for ever doubting it could be.
Arriving in Portofiro for the first time in many years, your meeting with new operant partner Pseudopod goes awry when you find him catatonic in your so-called safehouse. Ordered to burn the mission and flee, doing so would scupper your chance to complete one more mission and earn glory, respect, redemption, or simply the feeling that the mission that went so wrong you were put on ice in the first place was worth something after all. Quite what you chase and why is up to you, but one thing is clear in this hefty two hour demo – you're not going to run away again (and you can check out our Steam Next Fest guide for more on how to play for yourself).
Welcome to the opera
Trying to wrangle a fax machine back to life is probably going to attempt several dice rolls and skill checks.
Zero Parade's world is one of cryptonyms, secret double meanings, and propaganda. It's also one where trying to wrangle a fax machine back to life is probably going to attempt several dice rolls and skill checks, where you can receive a luck boost for many in-game hours for rubbing the bald spot on your partner's groaning head, and where each of your spy skills will chip in to steer your inner monologue like their own characters in a conversation.
In short, Zero Parade's is an awful lot like Disco Elysium. But this is a spiritual successor that builds on its style and frequent skill-checking RPG mechanics without just feeling like a redo – Zero Parades' espionage mystery is intriguing in its own right, and its spy thriller tone is doing its own thing. Though Cascade's skills popping up in conversation is a lot like the inner thoughts of Disco Elysium, in practice they create a different vibe, one that feels like your own rusty operant experience kicking into gear to analyze each situation.
Most of my two hours with Zero Parades is spent wandering around Portofiro and investigating the local market and docks, trying to figure out what happened to my partner, who his contacts and informants were, and also just why they brought me specifically out of retirement for this job. Chatting with the locals brings up several side avenues of investigation, from a mysterious phone booth that seems to cause locals to be abducted, to discussing what's essentially anime propaganda with children. Off school due to the country's crumbling infrastructure, I barter with them to earn a prop anime sword, which pairs nicely with my purple wig to bring me several stat buffs – and I promise to show them any of the show's collectible drinking cups I can track down.
From there I end up in a lengthy conversation with the owner of the market's music stall, who eye-rollingly judges his customers because they want to buy discs that can replay songs. A 'format fetishist', he's a purist who only respects playback methods that can be used just once for a superior sound, while simultaneously shuddering at the thought of actually playing them. The philosophical conversation about the merits of types of media with him is laugh-out-loud funny. Zero Parades has a great sense of humor, balancing real observations about the likes of facism while also being able to poke fun at certain types of pseudo-intelluctalism as well. Zero Parades is strange, dark, and witty – we're so back.
All the while I'm trying to juggle Cascade's Fatigue, Anxiety, and Delirium to not reduce any more of my stats – playing dress-up will only get me so far. After this, I stumble into where I should be able to meet an informant, only to find it's turned into a crime scene. Investigation quickly turns to evasion as I have to massage my skills through a sequence of checks in order to stay out of sight and escape the market unseen, choosing between blending into the crowd or going for a more direct approach. It's easy to see how different builds could tackle Zero Parade's situations in a multitude of ways. Already proving a worthy successor to Disco Elysium, after just a couple of hours with this free demo I'm feeling silly for ever doubting. Bring on the full release, and I'll be here ready to roll the dice, now unafraid to be the fool. Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is releasing for PC in 2026.
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