So I Finished Zero Parades: For Dead Spies

Zero Parades is a Fascinating Piece of Art Built on a Cursed Burial Ground #zeroparades #zaum #discoelysiumfinalcut #discoelysium Thank you to the publisher for providing a code for coverage and critique purposes. Thank you, Bee, for script editing and thumbnail creation: https://bsky.app/profile/crasscookie.... Zero Parades for Dead Spies, the follow-up to Disco Elysium, is so heavily focused on the relationship between media, art, power, and propaganda and I don’t know if it’s brazen, brave, stupid, interesting or all of the above. Arguably, the biggest theme and greatest critique in the game is the commodification of culture. The act of turning norms, cliches and cultures of art into parts of its product packaging, and yet that makes it a wholly fascinating game as a result. Here are two statements I believe to be true. The first is that great art, even art critical of its own existence, can come out of evil, bad, greedy, or simply misinformed places, and can still be worthwhile or deserving of its merits. As well as this, good developers can work under bad executives. Good artists can be supported by bad business. Hell, it's hard not to think that a sizable portion of the game's industry is owned by people with goals severely detached from my own as a human being. One need only look at the gutting of game studios and games media for an example of what I mean. This is true of the recent release of Subnautica 2l, which ousted much of its team in an effort to avoid payouts. The second statement I believe to be true is that any work of art critical of the powers that currently control it are at least partially subsumed into that power. Outer Worlds 2 taking swings at capitalism and militarism, while being published by Microsoft, feels near paradoxical, or at least not as principled as it may like to seem. Annapurna, for instance, has recently caught flak for being supported by Larry Ellison, who is the father of Megan Ellison, one of its founders. And if that makes you not want to support the likes of Outer Wilds, What Remains of Edith Finch, or Stray, as they likely exist due in part to its funding, and will funnel profit back into the company, that's ultimately pretty fair.. I've been rolling these thoughts around in my head for years now, for many games, but few enunciate this feeling quite as much as Zero Parades for Dead Spies, and I think that's partly due to its subject matter. Zero Parades for Dead Spies is the follow-up to Disco Elysium from the developer, but not really the creatives behind Disco Elysium. It's deeply political, both in-universe and in real life. I've talked a little about it in a previous video, so I'd urge you to check that out for a bigger overview of the relationship between the game and its ex-developers. Since that video, I have now played through the entirety of the full game, and though I think my position has evolved, that tension has not been solved, and I don't know if it ever will. For the sake of all of this, I'm going to try to talk about Zero Parades in a vacuum, and outside of that vacuum, and bring you to where my head's at now. For you, it may be simpler. It could just be 'this work of art is so tainted that even playing it for free would require a lapse in my own judgment'. Or, you could argue, well, 'a good game is a good game'. So in a sense, through piecing together my own thoughts, I'd love to hear yours too. I'd love it if an argument came along, almost as if plucked from the void, that can solve this feeling for me. I find it hard to believe that an argument made in a single sentence can ever convince me to shed my unease. And you may ask why I bothered playing, but I think it would feel hypocritical to overlook a piece fundamentally about propaganda, and then tell you it's not even worth considering without adequate consideration. I suspect we will see lots of criticism of this game going forward based on singular lines and phrases, without even an attempt to place that within its context, and to me, that feels intellectually lazy. We owe a work of art that we choose to talk about the due diligence to understand it, even if we ultimately dislike it. And as such, this isn't necessarily my final word on the game. It's just a peek into how I feel right now, as I type and eventually speak this sentence. With that brief prelude out of the way, let's try to do the impossible and actually talk about this game.