Plus a "Backstage Mode" offering a glimpse at how the game came together

As many reservations as I had going into ZA/UM's Zero Parades: For Dead Spies earlier this year, what with all of the drama and upset that's surrounded the studio since Disco Elysium's release, it pleasantly surprised me. I don't think I rate it more highly than its brilliant predecessor, but it offered a throughly fun time that felt like it was riding the coattails of Disco, but not in a way that left it any way unable to create its own magic.

Now, it's getting a free Director's Cut update to coincide with its console release, with a bunch of new additions and tweaks coming to the PC version.

ZA/UM claimed in a press release and Steam post that "approximately 40,000 words of new material" is being dropped into ZP with the update, which is set to rock up on PC October 1st. The narrative extras include "more opportunities to bond with allies (and handlers), carve new paths through sticky spots, and pick apart [protagonist Hershel Wilk's] embattled mind", but chief among them is a new scene set on a roundabout.

"Hershel Wilk and her old friend Ramses find themselves stoned out of their minds, behind the wheel of a hijacked tuk-tuk and seemingly unable to escape the Quisach Roundabout late at night," ZA/UM wrote of this encounter. "The objective seems simple enough. Take the right exit and head home. Fail to do so, and well... things might get existential. And possibly fatal." Sounds like suitably Disco antics alright.

Beyond that, the game's previously bitty English voice-over has been completed and had some sections, such as the intro, re-recorded to offer "a more consistent performance and audio quality". Anyone interested in getting a bit of a look behind-the-scenes can try a new Backstage Mode, which allows you to "move through earlier iterations of selected levels, exploring previous versions of environments and seeing how those spaces evolved on their way to the finished game". Along the way, there's cut content and dev commentary narrated by ZP art director Kaspar Tamsalu.

The likes of new clothing, new character portraits, and a photosensitivity mode round out the update's contents.

Not long after releasing Zero Parades, ZA/UM announced that up to 32 of their staff were either being laid off or are at-risk of being laid off, citing Zero Parades' commercial performance as having led them to need to downsize. For more on the stellar work the devs who've worked at the studio over the years have made, check out Edwin's thoughts on Zero Parades or Nic (RPS in peace)'s on Disco Elysium's Final Cut update.