On October 12, 2024, three Disco Elysium successors were unveiled to be in development on the same day. One was Longdue Game Studios, which revealed it was working on a “psychogeographic” RPG, which was later revealed to be called Hopetown. Then Dark Math Games was announced, alongside a trailer for its first game, XXX Nightshift.
And in a shocking last minute twist, a third studio, Summer Eternal, came forward with what I can only describe as a manifesto about workers’ rights and a statement of intent to create an RPG with “complexity and ambition” to rival our “wretched and wonderful world”.
There’s a fourth studio with a successor in the works, led by Disco Elysium lead writer Robert Kurvitz and art and design head Aleksander Rostov, but nothing has been officially unveiled for that project at the time of writing.
Hopetown Vs. Project C4
This week, history repeated itself. Longdue officially unveiled its game, Hopetown, with its first trailer. I’ve already dissected its single gameplay screenshot and reasons to be suspicious of it, but the game’s announcement clarified that Martin Luiga, a founding member of the ZA/UM collective and one of the developers who “involuntarily” left the company in 2021, has contributed to the narrative and gameplay systems. There is, at least, one other Disco alum attached to the team, though the other contributors and what exactly they’re adding to the mix remains unclear.
Then, on the same day, original Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM finally unveiled the project it’s been working on. Project C4 isn’t Disco Elysium 2, but an original game centering around espionage. Players will control an Operant “serving a questionable global power”, trying to complete a “desperate assignment which will put them at risk of losing their life, or much worse – being exposed for what they really are”.
Like Disco Elysium, failure will play a key role in the game. Instead of incentivising players to try and get a perfect outcome through rolls, the story accounts for your failure and moves on regardless.
The Chase For Clout
It’s hard to imagine that this simultaneous unveiling is a coincidence. While October 2024 was the five year anniversary of Disco Elysium’s release (though the announcements were a few days earlier than the actual release date), there’s no special occasion now. There are 365 days in a year, yet these games keep butting heads.
The problem with these two games – indeed, all the spiritual successors to the modern classic – is that they’re trying to ride the same wave, capitalising on Disco’s success to buoy themselves to the same heights. Strangely, ZA/UM has perhaps the least claim to this clout than its many competitors, with the exception of perhaps XXX Nightshift.
ZA/UM is far from the studio it was when it launched Disco Elysium. Many of the original team have left the studio (either voluntarily or involuntarily), with many key figures having been ousted in a nasty, lawsuit-ridden dispute. Some of those developers have split off to create their own studios and successors, but the end result is that ZA/UM has lost what many would consider the secret sauce to its success – the brains behind the game.
ZA/UM Can’t Get Back Its Goodwill
There are still some members of that original team left at ZA/UM, to be fair. Writer and editor Justin Keenan and artist Anton Vill, whose work is in the Project C4 trailer, are still at the studio, as are some other members. These developers didn’t have a hand in what happened to Disco’s team, and I’m sure they want to make a game they’re proud of.
But with so much drama surrounding the studio, and so much of its key talent having left to work on other projects, it’ll be hard to get fans back on board with ZA/UM. If the comments under the game’s trailer are any indication, it looks like a lot of Disco’s fans are taking a hard stance against Project C4. One comment says, “‘We brought you Disco Elysium’ I wish I had the confidence to be this brazen, wow.” Another says, “a dead corpse is talking”. Yet another says, “from the studio that killed Disco Elysium”.
Even just opening Disco Elysium – The Final Cut on Steam will reveal negative reviews alleging that ZA/UM stole the studio from its original developers and cut them out. With its reputation, ZA/UM will be fighting an uphill battle that I’m not sure it’s going to win.
- Released
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October 15, 2019
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ due to Blood, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs, Violence
- Developer(s)
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ZA/UM
- Publisher(s)
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ZA/UM