2 months after releasing Zero Parades, Studio ZA/UM is laying off employees: 'Its commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size'

Two months after the release of Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the followup to its stunning detective RPG Disco Elysium, Studio ZA/UM says the game hasn't sold as well as needed, and as a result it's laying off employees.

"While Zero Parades: For Dead Spies was released to critical acclaim, its commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size," ZA/UM wrote in a message shared on social media. "We have served redundancy or at-risk notices impacting up to 32 of our colleagues across all departments at ZA/UM Studio. Their work has made a lasting difference and left its mark on Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, and the studio has a whole."

(Image credit: Studio ZA/UM)

Zero Parades is not as universally beloved as Disco Elysium: Some reviewers found it outstanding, but others, including our own, felt it didn't quite come together. "No matter how fun or well-designed individual aspects of the game are, they all swirl around Hershel's fundamentally nonsensical approach to international espionage," Maddi Chilton wrote in her 66% review.

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"Unfortunately, it seems like a consequence of transplanting Disco Elysium's structure directly onto Zero Parades without considering how it actually plays. It's jarring to have little sister spy walking around rambling and blustering in exactly the same way as big brother cop."

Some on social media have also pointed out Studio ZA/UM's unfortunate history of layoffs and firings, which meant that most of the key figures behind Disco Elysium were gone by the time Zero Parades launched. Some of those splits have been bitterly acrimonious, and that made things tougher for Zero Parades: As our Studio ZA/UM expert Ted Litchfield said in 2025 ahead of the game's full reveal, "it will have to be spectacular to win back a hostile fanbase."

He wasn't wrong. Some of the reactions to the layoff announcement on social media are less sympathetic than you might expect, although the vitriol is clearly directed at the studio's leadership, which managed to shatter the team behind one of the most groundbreaking RPGs of all time after releasing just one game. Some also shared speculation similar to Ted's: that Zero Parades' failure to sell better was at least partially the result of that fallout.

Imagine deciding to stick with ZA/UM because you genuinely believe in the team and it's artistic vision only to be among 32 people rewarded with layoffs after managing to make a game that stands on its own feet despite looming shadow of Disco Elysium Every dev from Zero Parades deserves better

— @bestyoutuber69.bsky.social (@bestyoutuber69.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T21:56:25.707Z

zero parades likely failed to perform to their desired financial standards because the key audience that would've given it a chance were disco elysium fans - an audience already primed to hate za/um and too principled to give them money for a game that is built on what was stolen from disco elysium

— @gnarlyanimal.bsky.social (@gnarlyanimal.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T21:56:25.600Z

The way Zero Parades exists culturally not as a video game but as a signifier of specific industry practices and drama and is engaged with exclusively through that lens is incredibly disheartening to me.

— @errant-signal.com (@errant-signal.com.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T21:56:25.787Z

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