ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

A game inseparable from its studio's turmoil

Any honest review of ZERO PARADES has to start where nearly every reviewer does: with ZA/UM's public, bitter split from the team that made Disco Elysium. "The reason why I don't recommend buying this game is because ZA/UM fired Disco Elysium devs, hired new devs to make Zero Parades, had the audacity to say that this game was developed by the developers of Disco Elysium, and then they fired Zero Parades devs. I still recommend play[ing] it," reads one detailed negative review, notable for recommending the game while declining to endorse buying it. A separate reviewer draws a sharper line between developer and studio: "For the people that worked on the game (not the suits). All is forgiven." This review treats that context as essential rather than incidental: a meaningful share of the 1,665 English reviews explicitly frame their score, positive or negative, as a judgment on the controversy as much as the game itself, something this review found impossible to responsibly ignore.

Genuinely improved gameplay, widely credited

Set against that controversy, this review found broad, specific agreement that the underlying game mechanics are a real step forward. "The detective gameplay is genuinely excellent. I'd argue it's mechanically stronger than Disco Elysium. The core loop of piecing things together is satisfying," reads one review from a reviewer who still ultimately did not recommend the game overall. A separate reviewer lists specifics: "Gameplay was better than Disco Elysium's across the board. Pushing checks is a great mechanic, moving around the world is more [fluid]." This review credits that consistency as real and notable: even reviewers harshly critical of the writing, voiceover, or ZA/UM itself independently praise the same improvements to skill checks and navigation, a rare point of near-universal agreement in an otherwise deeply divided review base.

A widely repeated complaint about mismatched voiceover

The single most consistent technical complaint in this review's sample concerned voice acting. "The vocal recording is a mess," reads one negative review, while a separate reviewer frames the same issue in practical terms: "voice over jarring you have actively listen and try comprehend what game is saying." A third reviewer offers a workaround rather than a complaint, evidence of how widespread the issue was: "Do your sanity and ears a favor and go to settings>audio>voice over and set it to Characters only." This review treats that complaint as fair and central: reviewers across positive and negative scores alike independently describe skipped lines, text-audio mismatches, and an unevenly received narrator, a launch- state problem serious enough to affect immersion regardless of a reviewer's opinion on the writing itself.

A widely repeated, genuinely divided verdict on the writing

Beyond technical issues, this review found the review base split, not on whether the writing is competent, but on whether it lives up to its predecessor. "Zero Parades feels like it is missing many of the elements that made Disco Elysium a masterpiece. While it clearly aims for a similar experience, the writing, characters..." trails one critical review before being cut short by Steam's review length. A separate, positive reviewer reaches a more generous conclusion: "Zero Parades surpasses Disco Elysium in some areas while falling short in others. Still, it would be disingenuous to say this isn't a very good game." A third reviewer singles out a genuine strength inside that debate: "I loved Hershel as a character, and I personally relate to her a lot. She's a competent spy, but you can also feel her deep attachment to and remorse for her former Crew members." This review treats that split as fair rather than damning: reviewers consistently agree the ambition is real, even where they disagree sharply on whether it lands.

A specific, credible complaint about bugs and unfinished systems

Beyond voiceover and writing, this review found more specific but still serious complaints about the game's technical state at launch. "This game is about as unplayable as Owlcat/Bethesda games are on release. For a game with so few moving game system parts, such a big warchest, and such a long dev-cycle it's actually rather mind boggling how buggy it is. Most of the issues seem to stem from the save system," reads one detailed review. A separate reviewer describes a specific, concrete bug: "I accidentally did multiple quest bits out of order, once even completing a quest I hadn't even found yet." This review treats both as fair: they describe reproducible, structural problems rather than vague dissatisfaction, serious enough that several reviewers explicitly stopped playing and planned to return only after further patches.

A confirmed, sustained patch effort, against a somber backdrop

This review checked ZERO PARADES's own news feed directly, and found a genuinely sustained response: patch notes issued roughly monthly from launch week through at least mid-August 2026, each one explicitly targeting voiceover and bug complaints. The first patch, one week after launch, added missing voiced lines and temporarily removed voiceover that "severely differ[ed] from the text" until it could be re-recorded properly; a later patch specifically completed voice work for two named characters while acknowledging seventeen lines still missing for a third; the most recent patch resolved further quest-flow and journal bugs. This review treats that pattern as genuine, credible evidence the team kept working through the exact problems reviewers raised. But this review also found a considerably more sobering item in the same news feed: an official announcement, posted months after launch, stating that ZA/UM had begun a restructuring process, a stark postscript to a launch already inseparable from controversy, and one this review treats as relevant context for any reader curious about ongoing support.

Achievement data confirms a long, branching, mostly-finished game

This review checked ZERO PARADES's own global achievement data directly, and found a curve consistent with a substantial, largely linear-but-branching RPG: an early conditioning-related achievement sits at 62.2 percent, mid-game recruitment achievements cluster between 25 and 35 percent, and the rarest, most divergent-path achievements fall below 1 percent. This review reads that spread as confirmation that most players who start the game engage with a meaningful chunk of its main story, while its branching design means very few players see every possible outcome, consistent with reviewers who describe multiple, substantially different playthroughs.

Final verdict

ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies is, on its own mechanical and atmospheric merits, a genuinely strong espionage RPG, one that a wide swath of even its harshest critics credit with real improvements to the systems Disco Elysium pioneered. Its clearest weaknesses are a widely repeated complaint about mismatched, unfinished voiceover at launch, since substantially but not completely addressed by a sustained patch effort, and a genuine, unresolved split over whether its writing earns the comparisons it constantly invites. Layered over all of that is a controversy this review found impossible to separate from the game itself, and a studio whose own announced restructuring since release adds a somber note to its future. For players able to judge the work on its own terms, this is a strong, if imperfect, recommendation; for anyone who cannot separate the game from ZA/UM's treatment of its previous team, the complaints above are a fair and serious reason to look elsewhere.