Hey everyone! We are very happy to reveal the very first gameplay of zero parades – for dead spies. If you are wondering what our next game after disco Elysium has been like since our official announcement to over Gamescom, then prepare for a Whirlwind tour.
Zero Parades – For dead spies is an RPG of narrative espionage imbued with paranoia, surrealism and a fight for redemption. You play as Hershel, a brilliant but unhappy operator in a world where confidence is rare, betrayal is on every street corner and failure is inevitable.
You will see that our game proudly carries its CRPG line. If you have played Disco Elysium, Baldur Porte or pillars of eternity, you will feel at home. There are, of course, many new ideas that we wanted to bring in the mixture. So let’s make a deep dive to those you can see in the gameplay’s revelation trailer:
Dramatic meetings
This is a whole new feature that we introduce for zero parades. We want you to feel like a real operating (our term for spies) and this means including high intensity scenes alongside the most methodical.
Dramatic meetings are moments when time is motionless, so you have to make a series of choices to resolve a potentially fatal situation. But it’s not James Bond. You can’t just smile and get your way out. Thus, although you are qualified, the result of your choices will be finally determined by the dice roll – which is influenced by the attributes of your character. If you fail, the sequence will continue and you will have to hope that your next choice is better for you.
To illustrate with an example of the trailer: you are in the process of making matters. You only have time to react to the current situation and hope to get out. It starts with time to slow down a break and your highly qualified eye showing you your options. Do you try to hide in a crowd and lose your tail this way? Or do you take a risky leap and pray so that they dare not follow? None of the two options is good or wrong, but you will have to live with the consequences anyway.
Failure of the front and effort
A basic pillar of our game design philosophy is the idea of ”front failure”. The story continues whatever happens – you will be better if it goes well. Those who have played Disco Elysium should know the joy of kissing the failure we have put in our games. Do not be so fast to recharge the game because there is a surprise that awaits you after each bad dice jet.
We have evolved how it takes place in Zero Parades with the introduction of the “Exsert” button. When you are faced with a jet of dice, you now have the opportunity to push your luck a little further. Pressing the “ `exsert ‘button allows you to drive with advantage (adding a third dice to the roller) so that you can take the scores of the two best dice rollers and ignore the worst, giving you more chance of success. It comes with a small sacrifice, but we are going to go into what it is at another time.
Packaging
Much of the espionage fantasy is the “packaging” they must cross. It is to form their mind to deal with the worst situations that they can meet – as being questioned or being able to act as the enemy to sneak in sight.
We have transformed this idea into a gameplay mechanic into zero challenges. This is called, simply, packaging. An advancement of what we have done with the thought firm in Disco Elysium, this is where you can strengthen the thoughts you meet in the world of game. These can improve your skills or allow you to access new ways of thinking. But, being a spy, Hershel does not have the luxury of internalizing ideas for several hours or days as in Disco Elysium, so the experience with the packaging is much more SNAPP to correspond to our new framework.
We are very interested in the way in which the human mind is affected by the pressures of being a spy. Packaging is a way we explore this because you can decide how to shape Hershel from the inside. As with everything, you cannot have everything, so you have to balance the positive points with the negatives. Being an operator is not easy and if you are not careful, it could eat your mind.
Zero Parades – For Dead Spies will be launched in 2026 on PS5. List of wishes today.
