May 21, 2026

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies Walkthrough Part 1

Mahmud Munazil Rahman

Welcome to Into Indie Games’ Zero Parades: For Dead Spies Walkthrough.

From the creators of Disco Elysium, ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies drops players into a tense, surreal espionage RPG full of political intrigue, broken alliances, and psychological chaos. You step into the shoes of Hershel Wilk, a disgraced operative dragged back for one last assignment in the decaying city of Portofiro, where nearly every conversation can spiral into danger. Like its spiritual predecessor, the game leans heavily into dialogue, skill checks, and player choice, but adds new systems built around mental pressure, dramatic encounters, and spycraft. This walkthrough will guide you through the game’s investigations, choices, puzzles, and branching outcomes while helping you survive its strange and often overwhelming world.

As the game opens pick “What kind of Spy are you?”

Except the custom option where you can pick your own attributes, the three builds available are Kinetic – a build in which physical conditioning and violence are picked over emotions, Analytical – where your cognitive powers thrive over physical prowess and Charismatic – the spiritual build focusing on the soul over mental or physical abilities. The builds are based on Action, Relation and Intellect. You can assign Skill Points to each of them. For this playthrough, we picked the Kinetic build and after we had to assign 3 more Skill Points.

As you can see the Kinetic Build has 4 points in Action, 1 in Relation and 2 in Intellect. You can spend 3 more points now. Action skills improve your body and action abilities, Relation Skills improve your ability to deal with people, Intellect skills improve your modes of thinking. We put a point a in Dopplegang, 1 in Cold Read and 1 in Technoflex from each tree. Go ahead and begin the game after. Select any of the options during this introductory sequence. You will notice there are certain markers that increase or decrease depending on your choices, such as anxiety.

Play through this conversation with Pseudopod, Cascade’s handler, to find out the setup of the game. Cascade is a spy who finished her last mission disastrously and has now been recalled to the field. She is in a safehouse above a 24-hour photo shop in Portofiro. You will wake up in the real world in the room. Check around the room for various things, each are associated with different faculties. Check on Pseudopod’s body in the armchair. Touch his arm to try and wake him up. “Study his clothes” next.

Next, “Look in his eyes”. “Rub his bald spot, for luck,” when the option presents itself to gain the status effect “Feeling Lucky.” The downside is your fingerprints are now all over him. Finally, check his body to proceed. In the next sequence, selecting “The assignment, man. What is it?” will open up an option to “Coerce Pseudopod back into Service”, which has a skill check attached to it. If you succeed in this check, he will direct you towards the bathroom. Plop him back down on the chair. “Search him for clues” next. Finally, “Check his pockets” to proceed. “Examine the slip of paper” next. This will get you a Loose End and the item “Sock Purchase Order”.

Examining the business card will get you another Loose end and get you the item “Sensuous Business Card”. Eating the candy will raise Fatigue by 1. Go into the bathroom and check the trousers on the shower rail.

“Search the pockets” and check the coin pocket for a note. The note contains a cipher key. Proceed the story and a phone will begin to ring. Answer the phone. It’s Melita, Cascade’s controller. Talking to her will raise your Anxiety by 2. Some options will also increase will Delirium depending on the skill check fail. Telle Melita that Pseudopod has been eliminated. Melita will push you for answer to whether or not, Pseudopod has been “zeroed out” or not. All options will lead to you saying yes. If during this conversation, your Anxiety reaches 20 (cap) you will have to lower a skill to mitigate the damage.

Pick any skill, this will reset your anxiety meter. Remember, sleep also lowers pressure. Melita will want to extract you and let the woman in the Photoshop deal with Pseudopod. Eventually, you will have the option to force the issue.

You can try to use Grey Matter for a skill check but it is likely to fail. If you do, Cascades will start to think this is a simulation. Eventually you will have to agree to exfiltrate and this will get you the task “The Unassigned Assignment”. Now, check the disc deck next to Pseudopod.

This will get you a new Loose End. Pull the disc out to receive “Mysterious Red Disc.” Next check the Red folder on the makeshift desk next to the bathroom.

Rummage through the desk. Inside the cigarette pack you will find the second part of the One Time Key from the cipher. Take the cigarettes and you will gain the item “Suprema 100s”. Now, use Shadowplay to solve the Cipher.

The cipher will say “For Cascade all will be forgiven”. This will update the task “The Unassigned Assignment”. Burn the cipher and examine the Red Folder. It’s Cascade’s Dossier. Check “Anything else in there” at the end. You need to pass a skill check to read your service history. Now open the door and head out of the room.