{"id":12337,"date":"2026-02-23T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/02\/23\/masks-rituals-nuclear-strikes-and-crt-televisions-how-za-um-created-the-spy-world-of-zero-parades\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T16:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T16:30:00","slug":"masks-rituals-nuclear-strikes-and-crt-televisions-how-za-um-created-the-spy-world-of-zero-parades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/02\/23\/masks-rituals-nuclear-strikes-and-crt-televisions-how-za-um-created-the-spy-world-of-zero-parades\/","title":{"rendered":"Masks, Rituals, Nuclear Strikes, and CRT Televisions \u2013 How ZA\/UM Created the Spy World of Zero Parades"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cZero Parades is ultimately about identity,\u201d explains Kaspar Tamsalu, art director at developer ZA\/UM. \u201cThe conflict between what you subscribe to as an individual, as a private person outside of the professional sphere, and then how that mixes with what your vocation is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your vocation in ZA\/UM\u2019s latest RPG is espionage. Hershel Wilk, your protagonist, is a spy for The Superbloc, a union of left-wing republics. She was born bourgeois before ending up spying for the communists, a background story intentionally filled with blanks to allow you to shape Hershel as you see fit. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust because she’s from a communist country does not mean that she subscribes to the ideology,\u201d says Siim “Kosmos” Sinam\u00e4e, Zero Parades\u2019 principal writer. \u201cThis is up to the player to decide. Spies can be spies for ideology, for money, for a sense of accomplishment, or because they are batshit insane and want to do things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinam\u00e4e quickly offers an example of the latter: \u201cI’m going to subscribe to this thought called Unguided Missile Strikes, because I want to say violent things to people. I want to threaten people with nuclear strikes, because that’s the type of spy I am.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

When Sinam\u00e4e says \u201csubscribe to this thought\u201d, he\u2019s referring to Zero Parades\u2019 Conditioning system, which reformats Disco Elysium\u2019s Thought Cabinet for an espionage setting. When exploring the world and talking with characters, you\u2019ll encounter new ideas and concepts you can \u201csubscribe\u201d to, rewriting your personality to unlock new dialogue options and roleplaying opportunities. But where ZA\/UM\u2019s previous game explored what it would be like for an alcoholic amnesiac detective to soak up ideas like a sponge, Zero Parades approaches the mind of a spy like a collection of masks. Which one is required for today\u2019s task? This required a new method for thought subscription. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou get the choice about whether or not you want to reinforce or punish the thought,\u201d explains Nicolas Pirot, Zero Parades\u2019 lead technical artist. \u201cYou have a branching option of, \u2018I don’t like this. I don’t want that to be a part of myself. I was always a violent spy. I no longer want to be a violent spy.\u2019 You can resist that, and then that’ll have a different impact on the way you do things.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really framed as this violent reordering of your mind,\u201d he concludes. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s All in Your Head<\/h2>\n

That violent reordering is viewed through the flickering glass screen of an old CRT television. Much of Zero Parades\u2019 in-world technology is modelled after the gizmos and appliances of the 1990s \u2013 down at the Bootleg Bazaar, you\u2019ll find vinyl records housed in plastic cartridges in an analogue echo of Sony\u2019s old MiniDisc format. This approach extends past the boundaries of reality and into Hershel\u2019s psyche. The art team needed something functional but flawed to represent this spy\u2019s troubled mind \u2013 a mind that could tune itself into dangerous thoughts and settle into uncomfortable programming. And so the Conditioning system\u2019s menu sits inside that box of cathode rays.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s in an imperfect state,\u201d explains Maeve Bonefacic, a technical artist at ZA\/UM who helped create the system\u2019s look and feel. \u201cIn the sense that [the television] works, it does, but there’s a slight imperfection to that tool. We worked a lot on the particular glitches and effects that a CRT might have.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to threaten people with nuclear strikes, because that’s the type of spy I am.<\/section>\n

The CRT is just one example of Zero Parades\u2019 fascinating, two-pronged approach to art design. There\u2019s the physical \u2013 the environments you explore, the people you meet, the items you acquire \u2013 and then there\u2019s the creations of Hershel\u2019s mind, represented by the wild art cards assigned to each quest, the disturbing televised thoughts assessed through Conditioning, and the badges assigned to your sentient skills. ZA\/UM describes this approach as representing the two realms that Hershel exists in: the objective and subjective. <\/p>\n

The subjective side of Hershel\u2019s reality is spearheaded by lead illustrator Anton Vill, who created the surrealist artwork for Disco Elysium, including its grotesque Thought Cabinet. Once again, he took inspiration from the work of David Lynch, particularly the ominous tone of Twin Peaks\u2019 dark forests, reflecting the messed-up thoughts of a broken character in his bizarre, twisted, emotionally heavy artwork. In one example, a collection of five, cigarette-smoking Hershel doppelgangers face each other in an unnerving pentagon as words of insecurity, such as \u201cabandoner\u201d, \u201cliar\u201d, and \u201cf***ing spy\u201d, hover above them on flowing reams of paper. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a huge fan of this kind of mysterious, dark, inner world of a person,\u201d says Vill. \u201cI think that shines through [in Zero Parades\u2019 subjective artwork] and I think it\u2019s perfect for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Portofiran Identity<\/h2>\n

While the art team understandably wanted to create a sense of warped darkness for Hershel\u2019s interior thoughts, it needed to create a complementary vibe for the physical world. It would need to be via different techniques, though, so that subjective thoughts didn\u2019t merge with objective reality. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to subtly inject this unease for the players,\u201d says Tamsalu. \u201cThere is a lot of detail that we put into the game, but the way we have textured these [details], and how we approach lighting for the scenes and set up these situations, there is this underlying current of something brewing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This thing that is brewing is, of course, why Hershel is in the city of Portofiro. But her job is very unlike that of Disco Elysium\u2019s disaster cop protagonist, and the espionage story Zero Parades tells had a significant influence on the way the city was designed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a police officer looking into a crime, anybody who’s in the vicinity is a potential suspect and expected to speak with you,\u201d Tamsalu explains. \u201cAnd in a spy game, it’s kind of like the inverse of that. You don’t want to stand out. And because of that, we needed to create a slightly busier backdrop. That’s why you have these characters that go about their own business, and you have your own covert business as you navigate through that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

While capturing the heart of spy fiction has been an important part of the project, ZA\/UM has been very intentional with how it has approached a genre filled with tropes, staples, and conventions. As you\u2019d expect from the studio, this isn\u2019t a James Bond or Jason Bourne adventure, but nor does it aspire to be a John le Carr\u00e9 novel repackaged as a video game. This had to be a fresh take on this shadowy world, and so a number of rules have been set in place. For instance, Herschel is an \u201coperant\u201d, rather than an agent. Her mission takes her \u201cin-theatre\u201d rather than in the field. And her employer, the communist Superbloc, flips the typical capitalist nation perspective of classic Cold War thrillers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to avoid the obvious spy themes,\u201d says character artist Liis V\u00e4ljaots, who explained how this philosophy extended into the art. \u201cOne of the things we wanted to avoid was making the world look too noir-y and too oppressive, to kind of contrast the subject matter, which is quite serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of trench coats in the game, though,\u201d she laughs. \u201cThat’s undeniable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roll Play<\/h2>\n

Your choice to wear a trench coat or not is just one of many decisions that shape the kind of spy you are \u2013 clothing, as in Disco Elysium, provides stat modifiers that boost or inflict penalties on your skills. That pool of skills has been reduced (now 15, down from Disco\u2019s 24) with the idea of making each attribute more prominent and viable. They\u2019ll also be tested with much more frequency. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a skill check every 3,000 words, compared to Disco Elysium\u2019s every 6,000 words,\u201d reveals Sinam\u00e4e. \u201cWe feel this makes the player more engaged with what they’re doing and what type of spy they want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I explored in IGN\u2019s hands-on preview of Zero Parades<\/a>, skill checks have deeper mechanical complexity this time around thanks to the Pressures system. Each of your skills fits into one of three categories \u2013 athletic, psychological, and intellectual – and those categories have corresponding \u201chealth\u201d bars that measure your fatigue, anxiety, and delirium levels. Fail a psychological skill check and your anxiety bar will fill. Max the bar out, and you\u2019ll take a permanent stat penalty. <\/p>\n

Things are made even more interesting by the ability to \u201cexert\u201d a skill check \u2013 you can roll an extra die to increase your chances of passing the check, but at the cost of purposefully damaging the skill\u2019s corresponding pressure bar. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s like, how much more can the player take?,\u201d says Bonefacic. \u201cCan I afford to, for example, exert a dice roll? Am I allowed to do that? Do I have the resources to do that? I think it has added an interesting element of strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

That strategy wouldn\u2019t work if there were no method for reducing your pressure gauges. By default, a bar will reset after taking so much damage that you endure a stat penalty, but that\u2019s hardly an approach to build a self-care system around. Instead, you can have Hershel perform a ritual. <\/p>\n

\u201cRituals are a system that we have where you can reduce your pressures by doing all kinds of small things in the world,\u201d explains Pirot. \u201cIt can be sitting on a bench and watching the sunrise that might lower your anxiety. It can be smoking a cigarette, having a cup of coffee, or yelling at someone in the street. These very small, very immersive moments, that are available in different parts of the world at different times, that can help an incredibly stressed out, anxious, fatigued, or delirious spy to keep their sanity more or less in check.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than, say, the classic health potion of other RPGs, which are clearly labelled and a genre staple, you\u2019ll need to discover these rituals through exploration and experimentation. They also unlock further roleplay opportunities \u2013 yelling at someone in the street doesn\u2019t exactly sound like a traditional remedy, but for an operant boiling over with rage, it may be very cathartic. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy the player making a build choice of, \u2018I want to be a very violent spy\u2019, they would naturally seek out the rituals that complement that,\u201d says Pirot. <\/p>\n

Rituals, mental masks, blending into busy cities, and threats of nuclear armageddon. These are all important aspects of Zero Parades\u2019 spy fantasy, and each is manifested within the game by a different team at ZA\/UM. Writing works alongside artwork and system design to produce a world through which you can observe, bargain, and bully. A world in which you can roleplay the type of spy you think can change the world. Or, at the very least, change their place in it.<\/p>\n