DoubleZero Is Dead: What Comes Next?

There was a moment when I knew DoubleZero was done. I was working on yet another revision, trying to make it fit, and I stopped. The name did not make sense anymore. The mechanics had evolved past their roots. It was not about espionage anymore. It wasn’t even percentile-based. I was holding onto something that did not fit, weighed down by a past version of the game that no longer existed.

DoubleZero started as a retro clone, built to scratch a specific itch. It was an alternative to the late, lamented James Bond 007 system that could handle anything modern day without magic or superpowers. And for a while, it worked. But as I refined the system, it kept expanding. It moved beyond espionage and beyond its original mechanics. One day, I realized I wasn’t designing DoubleZero anymore. I was designing something else entirely.

And if it wasn’t DoubleZero, why keep the name?

I’ve talked before about how the weight of past work can hold things back. DoubleZero was one of those things. Trying to force it into a shape that matched expectations, that still looked like DoubleZero, was stopping me from making the game I actually wanted to make. The solution wasn’t another revision. It was to let it go.

That’s where The Simple Approach came in. This is the system I was aiming for all along. It does what I need it to do, serves as a statement on a specific style of play, and gives me a platform for the kinds of games I want to create. And that includes modern espionage.

So, yes, DoubleZero is dead. But a new modern espionage game is coming, built using The Simple Approach. It’s a spiritual successor, but not a salvage job. No more patching holes, no more forcing old ideas into new frameworks. It’s built from the ground up to be exactly what it needs to be.

Right now, the biggest holdup is the title. Names are hard, and finding something that’s both evocative and available is its own battle. But that’s a temporary obstacle. The game is happening.

DoubleZero is gone, but the ideas that made it work aren’t. They’re moving forward without baggage, without compromise, into something new.