Disco Elysium is one of the most celebrated indie games of the past decade, with many praising its writing and narrative design. Since its release, the development studio ZA/UM has undergone a lot of public turmoil, departures, and legal issues, but those remaining at the company have evidently been working on a new RPG. Today, during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live presentation, we learned what it was: Zero Parades.
The reveal trailer for Zero Parades is vague and establishes a tone more than anything else. Someone doing voiceover describes a spy he once knew, and that he thought she would save them, but “everything she touched rippled into failure.” Afterwards, text on the screen reads, “Your friends are you. Each a separate limb of the whole.”
Afterwards, we get a frantic barrage of concept art and brief snippets of gameplay. The gameplay looks quite similar to Disco Elysium, both in its art style and its isometric camera, but it’s not quite enough to get a firm sense of how similar the games really are. Afterwards, we see the game’s logo and title. A subtitle underneath cycles between a few phrases to complete the sentence, including “for fake radicals,” “for dead spies,” and “for missing pop stars.”
The game’s Steam page provides a lot more details. You play as Hershel Wilk, the spy mentioned by the voice-over during the reveal trailer. A description reads, “Five years ago, you led your team into the abyss and have been haunted by your failures ever since. Now you’ve been recalled for a mysterious assignment that may give you a chance to prove yourself again.”
The game currently has no release window, and Steam is its only listed platform. For more ONL, check out the new Lego Batman game, the Sekiro anime, and the Fallout Season 2 teaser.
