The studio lost its lead designer to lawsuits. Sequels were cancelled. Splinter studios formed to chase the legacy. Industry obituaries were written in real time. ZA/UM was supposed to be finished.

Today it’s sitting at #6 on Steam’s Top Sellers chart.

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, ZA/UM’s first major release since the corporate implosion that ousted the Disco Elysium creative team, launched May 21 to numbers that suggest the studio’s pulse is stronger than anyone predicted. The espionage RPG is pulling 2,016 concurrent players, climbing Steam’s New Releases and Featured Win sections, and has press quotes calling it “a worthy Disco Elysium successor” (GamesRadar+) and “a fascinating RPG” (IGN).

Steam user reviews: 81% Positive across 32 reviews. Thin sample — not a definitive verdict. But the top-rated player review, from someone with nearly 27 hours logged, calls it “one of the greatest game narrative experiences I’ve had: incredible writing, gorgeous art, phenomenal voice acting, sound design, it all comes together beautifully.”

At $39.99, ZA/UM is betting players want more of what made Disco Elysium essential.

The Elephant in Every Review

Every major review of Zero Parades grapples with the same ghost. Disco Elysium was a landmark — one of the most celebrated narrative RPGs of the past decade. Then came dueling lawsuits between ZA/UM and its own founders, including lead designer Robert Kurvitz. Cancelled sequels. A cascade of splinter studios. The follow-up was always going to be judged against a game made by people who no longer work there.

GameSpot’s Richard Wakeling, who scored it 8/10, noted that Zero Parades follows the Disco Elysium formula “incredibly closely” — another combatless, verbose isometric RPG where your skills form parts of your psyche and comment on the world around you. But where Disco Elysium gave each inner voice a distinct personality, Zero Parades leans on a single narrator whose performance multiple critics found wanting. PCGamesN’s Lauren Bergin wrote that the narrator “doesn’t quite have the same spark as its predecessor.”

Kotaku was more blunt, dubbing it “a big ugly game for a big ugly world” — a compliment wrapped in barbed wire, acknowledging that the game’s anger sometimes tips into narrative chaos.

What Zero Parades Does on Its Own Terms

Here’s where the comeback gets real. Strip away the comparisons and Zero Parades is delivering something compelling.

You play Hershel Wilk, codename Cascade, a disgraced spy dragged back for one last assignment in the city of Portofiro — caught in a three-way ideological war between a communist megastate, a techno-fascist empire called La Luz, and corporate power. Multiple critics highlighted the depiction of a town being slowly consumed by fascist monoculture as one of the game’s sharpest elements. Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell gave it 5/5, calling it “a fine-tuned caricature of humanity’s petty, poisoned psyche, a game made with care, for only the finest sickos.”

The stress system adds mechanical tension its predecessor never had. Fatigue, anxiety, and delirium function as competing health bars — push your luck by exerting for a third die on skill checks, but risk permanently draining your skills when the meters max out. It’s more gamified than anything in Disco Elysium, and it suits the spy thriller framing. GameSpot praised the writing for channeling John le Carré’s morally ambiguous style while balancing surrealist undertones with geopolitics and interpersonal drama.

The Scoreboard

OpenCritic: 86. Metacritic: 83. Strong numbers — not generation-defining, but firmly in “this is a very good game” territory. The writing and worldbuilding are the clear strengths. The voice acting and the inevitable shadow of a predecessor made by different people are the drag.

For ZA/UM, this is the best possible outcome short of a miracle. The studio the industry left for dead just dropped a Top 10 Steam seller with critics’ scores in the mid-80s. Disco Elysium isn’t walking back through that door. But Zero Parades has enough of its own teeth to suggest ZA/UM’s story isn’t over either.

Sources