One other day, one other layoff announcement. This time it comes from Zero Parades: For Useless Spies developer ZA/UM, which mentioned on social media that regardless of the sport’s crucial acclaim, the studio cannot maintain the dimensions of its group.
ZA/UM took to Bluesky on July 17 to share the unlucky information. The group mentioned that though Zero Parades reviewed effectively, “its business efficiency” made it tough for the studio to keep up its present worker depend. Because of this, the corporate has “served redundancy or at-risk notices” to as much as 32 staffers on the RPG studio.
“All through this tough course of, we’ve continued to seek the advice of and work with representatives of the ZA/UM Staff’ Alliance,” the studio wrote on Bluesky. “This modifications the form of ZA/UM, however not its goal. Our inventive requirements stay unchanged: We’ll persist.”
Zero Parades: For Useless Spies is the second sport from ZA/UM following the studio’s 2019 outing Disco Elysium. Launched in Might 2026 for PC with a PS5 model coming later this 12 months, Zero Parades is an isometric espionage RPG a couple of feminine operative named Hershel Wilk who’s tasked with uncovering the secrets and techniques of her haunted previous. It is chilling and thrilling in the most effective methods, receiving an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Zero Parades: For Useless Spies assessment and an 83 rating on Metacritic.
ZA/UM is the most recent developer to undergo layoffs, as 2026 has seen the video games trade rattled by myriad studio closures and worker terminations. Earlier this month, Xbox let go of 1,600 staffers as a part of its huge “reset” earlier this month, with one other 1,600 deliberate to get laid off within the subsequent 12 months. Skate studio Full Circle was additionally hit with layoffs in February 2026, as was 2XKO developer Riot Video games in the identical month. In the meantime, Sony shut down Bluepoint Video games, the developer accountable for some wonderful remakes, in February as effectively. It looks like in every single place you look, one other layoff occurs.
