ZA/UM lays off up to 32 staff despite Zero Parades critical success

ZA/UM, the studio behind Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, announced layoffs on July 17 via Bluesky, confirming that up to 32 employees have been served redundancy or at-risk notices. The culprit isn't reviews — it's sales.

The studio said Zero Parades reviewed well but that its commercial performance made sustaining the current team size impossible. ZA/UM noted it worked through the process alongside representatives of the ZA/UM Workers' Alliance and closed its statement with a defiant note: "This changes the shape of ZA/UM, but not its purpose. Our artistic standards remain unchanged: We will persist." Zero Parades launched on PC in May 2026 — a PS5 version is still coming later this year — and landed an 83 on Metacritic and an 8/10 from GameSpot. The isometric espionage RPG follows operative Hershel Wilk as she digs into the secrets of her haunted past.

ZA/UM built its reputation on Disco Elysium, the 2019 RPG that became one of the most critically celebrated games of its generation. Zero Parades was the studio's long-awaited follow-up, and the critical reception suggested the team still had its creative voice intact — making the commercial shortfall all the more painful. The broader industry context doesn't help: 2026 has been a brutal year for game developers, with Xbox cutting 1,600 jobs in a sweeping reset and another 1,600 planned over the next 12 months, Riot Games and Full Circle hit with layoffs in February, and Sony shutting down Bluepoint Games in the same month.

The announcement landed hard in the gaming community, given how much goodwill ZA/UM carries from Disco Elysium. Whether the studio can stabilize around a smaller headcount and continue developing games remains to be seen, but the message from ZA/UM is clear — they intend to keep going.