It’s true: If you squint at the gameplay footage of ZA/UM’s Zero Parades, all you’ll see is Disco Elysium with a different coat of paint. It’s set in an isometric city covered in rust and filth, is intensely detailed with surreal art, and sticks all its dialogue on the right side of the screen.
However, the Disco Elysium comparisons don’t seem to apply to protagonist Hershel Wilk, who appears to be a relapsed spy called back in to assemble a squad. I don’t think that you’ll be waking up hungover and naked in your hotel room at the start of Zero Parades. Hershel, the two off-screen characters in the State of Play trailer explain, hasn’t been around for five years, but is still considered one of the best.
That doesn’t mean she won’t get into trouble. There’s a scene where she’s being interrogated while strapped to a chair and getting up to some hijinks around the city wearing a rectangular mascot’s jiggly head. I can only imagine it’s to pass a tough skill check.
There are a few glimpses of familiar systems from Disco Elysium, like a black and white detective vision for piecing together bits of evidence and a menu screen of ongoing tasks in the form of playing cards. The real question is how all of it will fit together, especially around a character (or a full crew of spies?), not one sorry cop and his quiet comrade.
Nothing in the trailer really sells how much is different this time around despite some that info being out there from previews ZA/UM held earlier this year.
As Ted said in his Zero Parades preview, it’s going to be hard for ZA/UM to convince Disco Elysium fans to play another game from the studio that ousted much of its core talent. After all, there’s a list of other games coming from former ZA/UM members still on their way. That said, this is the first time I’ve genuinely been interested in what Zero Parades could be even if I’m skeptical about the way ZA/UM has handled everything in the past few years.
I’m sure we’ll learn more as we get closer to its release next year.