Pick up the pieces of your broken network, untangle a bloody web of intrigue at the End of History, and prove yourself on the big stage or blow it all up – again.

Brilliant, burnt-out, possibly cursed – you play as operant Hershel Wilk, alias CASCADE. 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.

Find yourself thrown into a three-way struggle for cultural and ideological power, played out across an unforgettable new city. In ZERO PARADES, the world itself is a character with its own secrets, traumas, and miracles for you to discover.

To get anywhere in this world, you'll need friends. Unfortunately, you don't have any. Instead, you'll go up against international bankers, foreign techno-fascists, psychic doppelgängers, a paranoid TV presenter, a man with a box for a heart, and dozens more. Everyone you meet has their own agendas, beliefs, and secrets for you to uncover and turn to your own ends.

In this line of work you're going to fail *way* more often than you succeed. That much is expected of you. What matters is how you pick yourself back up. As an operant, your dice are in the hand of fate. If they don't go your way (and they won't), you'll have to improvise and hope the consequences are ones you can live with.

Disco Elysium creators ZA/UM Studio revealed “The Friends You Have Left to Die” - a new trailer for Zero Parades: For Dead Spies that turns the spotlight on the spy crew orbiting Herschel Wilk. The trailer offers a first glimpse at the people she once worked with and who she might need to win back to fulfill her final assignment.

In Zero Parades, you play as Hershel Wilk, alias Cascade, a brilliant but cursed spy for the Operant Bureau who’s been brought back by her controllers for a desperate assignment. Five years ago, your old network — the Whole Sick Crew — was blown to pieces. Now, it’s up to you to put them back together as best you can:

• Karolina Hayato (Cryptonym: Kindred): The youngest member of the old crew, as much a younger sibling as an asset. You taught K everything she knows about the shadow arts, from infiltration, to handling interrogations and beyond. When you last saw her, she was undercover inside a highly experimental Dream Study. For all you know, she might still be there.
• Ramses Malloy (Cryptonym: Radian):The Whole Sick Crew’s resident circuit-surgeon, Ramses specializes in audio surveillance and forensics. There’s no line he can’t tap, no room he can’t bug. He was also the closest thing you had to a true friend among the old crew, someone you could let your guard down around. You dearly miss sinking into an old couch with one of his meticulously rolled joints.
• Tempo del Sur (Cryptonym: Taxman): Some people have a huge presence in a room, Tempo has a huge presence in rooms he’s not even in. This larger-than-life character is a major player in the Portofiran underworld. The kind of guy who can get you anything through legal channels and absolutely everything through non-legal ones. He was one of the first to spot the promise of Luzian tech and pop culture before it took over the world, and he’s made a killing for his foresight. You’ll know him by his colourful manner of speaking and the imported Ouroboros Black cigarettes he chain smokes.
• Vespar Sondo (Cryptonym: Virtue): Vespar is a member of the carabineros – Portofiro’s elite investigative police. His connections to the city’s authorities and informants within the local mob make him an invaluable source of illicit information.. When he’s off-duty, you’ll find him drinking at the Fogged Mirror. When he’s on-duty, honestly, there’s a fair chance you’ll find him drinking there as well.
• Eszti Newitz (Cryptonym: Estoc): No-nonsense, venom-tongued, and extremely competent, Eszti found herself deep undercover in the Portofiran government as a liaison with EMTERR – a global development bank and rival intelligence service. It was Eszti who stuck her neck out to warn you that the network had been compromised, but when it came time to leave town, you left her out to dry along with everyone else.
• Holocene (Real name unknown): Your enigmatic second-in-command and the crew’s master cryptographer. HOLOCENE has a theory about almost everything, including one about a rival intelligence service run by cats. If you need a cipher decoded, he is your guy. If you need someone to have a normal conversation with, maybe look elsewhere.

That’s it – the Whole Sick Crew, aka: The Friends You Left to Die. To pull off your assignment, you’re going to have to get at least some of them back on your side. It’s not just about who you can trust, it’s who can trust you?

Key Features:

• Become an Anti-Icon: Play as Hershel - brilliant, relentless, magnetic… and cursed. A former top operant whose touch turns everything to ash. She is as dangerous to her enemies as she is to her friends. 
• Espionage Reinvented: Descend into a world of bootleg mind-erasure, failed space programmes, and state-sponsored pop stars. This is espionage stripped of glamour - no parades, no happy endings - at least probably not for you.
• Failing Forward: In the life of an operant, failure is inevitable. Here, it’s another way forward - every misstep opens doors that success would run swiftly by.  
• A Story-Rich Espionage RPG: From the studio which brought you Disco Elysium. Blending the psychological depth of a spy novel with surrealist undertones and richly drawn characters. 
• A Question of Identity: Who are you when no one is watching? Or, at least, when you *think* no one is? In ZERO PARADES, the answer will define much more than just the assignment. Cope with the terror of reality by giving up parts of yourself and try not to lose your mind in the process.

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is coming to PC (Steam/Epic Games Store/GOG) on May 21, 2026 at $39.99, followed by PS5 later in 2026.