A little over a week ago, I was invited to a pre-TGS press briefing for ZA/UM’s next game, Zero Parades. We’ve just received a new trailer for it, but I’m here to tell you all the juicy details about how much the title wants to push you out of your comfort zone.
Make no mistake, this game might look a lot like Disco Elysium, but it isn’t a sequel. Legally, the game can’t even be set in the same world due to ongoing disputes over ownership. However, Zero Parades follows the same style and builds upon the kinds of mechanics that fans of the original title loved.
Zero Parades Will Never Stop Pushing You
Everything about Zero Parades is brutal, confrontational, yet unequivocally mesmerizing. For example, its world is based on the concept of ‘The End of History.’ This is something people worried about in the 90s. The idea that everything worth inventing had been invented, and progress would begin to grind to a halt until we’re all zombies staring at a screen and interacting with each other by using anything but our human features.
Three fascist superpowers vie for control of the world, and it all comes to a head in the game’s setting, Portofiro. It’s a city with its glorious past well and truly behind it. You can see the shine of hope under the rust and dust from the decades since people gave up, the street vendors and trash clogging up the alleys, and the people living out there lives in the same way day after day.
It’s actually a lot more charming than it sounds, thanks to the sensational artwork. Throughout the press briefing, we were treated to screen after screen of gorgeous visuals. Every menu background and scene from Portofiro has been carefully designed right down to the smallest detail.
But a game is nothing without character, and Zero Parades‘ character is a fascinating one. Hershel is an Operant, a secret agent working for a shady intelligence bureau. She’s an ex-spy and well past her prime. She’s not spry and can’t easily best a group of foes in a tight spot, but finds herself thrust into a situation where she needs to gather a group of her old friends to fight for a cause much larger than herself.
Unfortunately, Hershel has no current friends because she brutally betrayed all of them. Zero Parades asks if you can mend the bonds between people whose trust you’ve broken and cast aside like an empty crisp packet. We’ve all asked this of ourselves at one point, and now you’ve got to live that uncomfortable truth.
As you progress, you’ll see that some relationships can be mended, while others can’t. There’s no clear path from start to finish, but you’re allowed to fail and carry on. ZA/UM wants you to live with your mistakes and choices instead of save scumming, and I think that’s brilliant. This is something I always force myself to do and wish more people would do.
As you might imagine, all this spy work and dealing with your innermost demons takes a toll. Don’t expect a voice in your head, though; instead, you’ve got to deal with pressure and exertion. These meters build up over the course of the game, providing some advantages and disadvantages as you hit specific thresholds. Higher pressure can help in a pinch, but not when you’ve got to deal with an old friend who wants an apology.
Of course, this couldn’t be a CRPG without dice rolls. Pressure, exertion, and skills you pick up over the course of the game all play into the outcomes of these rolls as modifiers. You can’t just aim for a specific skill set and grind them out, though. Instead, skills are acquired through life experiences. Meet a character and have a moment with them, which opens up a memory and thought in Hershel’s mind. However, you must commit the lesson to long-term memory to unlock the skill.
This mimics how we can choose to push some memories aside in real life. Say, betraying a friend, and what we said to them, so we don’t replay it over and over in our heads every night.
I think saying that Zero Parades is a game for all Disco Elysium fans is disingenuous. It’s a great-looking CRPG with some intriguing mechanics, more than you know about. It’s a game with that seemingly perfect combination of densely-packed setting and almost endless possibilities. I can’t help but compare it to Dishonored in the way it allows for so much choice and consequence while forcing you to deal with uncomfortable truths.
That combination worked so well, and I think it’ll be just the same in Zero Parades. There’s a set of ideals driving the game’s development that hasn’t wavered since day one. You can see that in-game today, and I urge you to keep an eye on it if you’re in any way into this genre.
For those of you who have been following ZA/UM’s internal conflicts with and between the original creators of Disco Elysium, the potential deeper inspiration behind Zero Parades might have crossed your mind. Here we have a game about someone living with the consequences of their rather heinous actions.
You’ve got to grovel to people your character betrayed long before you entered the scene, asking to make amends but also for help for the greater good. I can’t help but think that somewhere in the subtext is a finger pointing at the parties involved and stating to them plainly, “You did this, and though it might be uncomfortable, you can undo it and make the world a better place for our fans.”
The brilliant People Make Games have covered the events in great detail, and I recommend you watch their coverage to enlighten yourself. Watching them helps support independent games journalism, as does heading to our Patreon and signing up for one of the membership levels.
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