Longdue is one of the many companies to rise from the ashes of ZA/UM, positioning itself as a studio made up of former Disco Elysium devs, and working on a successor to the much-beloved RPG.
However, like many of the others – and ZA/UM itself – it has found itself at the centre of controversy since its inception just months ago. Firstly, because it was not entirely clear what former ZA/UM talent is at Longdue. The big players, Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov, are not, and have instead formed Red Info Ltd.
Two other studios were announced on the same day as Longdue, and their links to Disco Elysium were much clearer. Dark Math Games, which is creating XXX Nightshift, is headed by Timo Albert, who has himself down as a motion graphic designer on Disco, and Kaur Kender, a producer and investor from ZA/UM. Summer Eternal, on the other hand, was founded by Argo Tuulik, a writer on Disco. This made the lack of confirmed former ZA/UM devs at Longdue stand out even more – and only became a larger point of contention among fans when there was a legal dispute between the studio and Tuulik.
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Now, we have two names: Martin Luiga, a co-founder of ZA/UM, and Piotr Sobolewski, who led Knights of Unity, an outsourced development team that worked on Disco. We also have the name of Longdue’s first game, Hopetown. The reveal trailer featured Disco’s iconic narrator, Lenval Brown.
Ahead of Hopetown’s Kickstarter opening today, I spoke with both Sobolewski and Longdue’s creative director, Grant Roberts. Here, we spoke about Hopetown – and went over some of the concerns that have been raised by Disco fans outside of the game.
Who At Longdue Worked On Disco Elysium?
I started by asking Sobolewski how he would define his role at Longdue now.
“Basically, I’m the guy who ensures that the game is done, with regards to integrating it with [the] game engine and developing code,” he explains. “I’ve taken part in so many gaming projects that I’ve seen a lot of approaches to production, [so] I can also advise on this angle. [I can] structure the operations in a way so that they are efficient and not colliding with creative flow.”
I ask if this is similar to his role on Disco Elysium, to which he says, “Not really.”
“Disco is basically a game that the Knights of Unity developed at the time when I was a CEO of the company,” he explains. “I was pretty much managing the whole company, and Disco was just one of the projects, but it was a very special project, so I was closer there.
“I wasn’t hands-on, like, developing code or designing things. Although I did have a couple of ideas that landed in the game, I wasn’t a designer at all, so my role is rather to oversee that everything goes smoothly. […] but I was happy to take part in the meetings from time to time as well.”
He says that he is now “consulting, advising and focusing on family life”.
That leads us to the other former ZA/UM talent. Roberts explains Luiga’s involvement on Hopetown right now.
“He was not involved in the beginning here at Longdue, he joined the team recently,” Roberts starts. “We’ve already had calls to talk about ideas for the game and talk about what he did on Disco Elysium and how he did it, and how we can do things like that in Hopetown.
“Pretty much everybody on the dev team is inspired by Disco Elysium in some way. It’s one of our favorite games. And so we’re walking a tightrope between being inspired by Disco Elysium and making something that people who liked Disco Elysium will still like, and also doing something new.”
As for Brown, Roberts says that his involvement goes beyond voice acting and that they’re doing “character work” with him as he plays the protagonist’s father.
Roberts says that there are more Disco devs on the project, but they can’t be named at this time. “There are some people who used to work at ZA/UM who have been involved with the project, who are no longer here. There are some people who worked there [and] are still here, and some of those people who were from ZA/UM have requested that their names not be made public.
“There’s a lot of drama around ZA/UM. There’s a lot of drama around what’s happened since then. I think some of those people would like to stay out of any Disco-related controversy, and we respect that.”
Since we spoke, it has been revealed that Abena Jones is also on the team, who lists herself as an “editor and writing advisor” for Disco Elysium on LinkedIn.
Conflict Between The Disco Elysium Successors
Initially, there wasn’t any obvious conflict between the three studios that revealed themselves to the world on the same day. However, that fell apart in November 2024, when Argo Tuulik said that he was sued by Longdue, with an injunction preventing him from working at Summer Eternal until April 2025. In a statement, Longdue said that a court hearing had indeed sided with the studio, while adding that Tuulik did work with Longdue for a time – something he denies.
Roberts says he cannot comment on this dispute as he doesn’t know the details. However, he did respond to Tuulik’s assertion that the studio was “approaching every Disco-credited dev, increasingly desperate to give literally any substance to [Longdue]’s ‘spiritual successor’ claim”.
“We have been approaching people from ZA/UM and people who had a connection to Disco, not for marketing purposes, but because Disco Elysium inspired all of us,” Roberts says. “We have been talking with people and bringing people like Martin on board because they have invaluable expertise in making a game like this, and there are not a lot of people at this studio that do have a ton of expertise in making a game like this.
“I’ve been making games for 25 years – I’ve never made one of these. I know how to do it, but to do it really well, it would be irresponsible to not get in touch with people like that, to seek their advice, to seek to collaborate with them.”
Ultimately, Roberts says that the team just wants to work on the game. “I think everyone is really looking forward to moving past all of this and getting to the point where we’re all able to make what we want to make.
“Everybody who was a fan of Disco Elysium, I think, wants to see more games like that out in the world. And the fact that there are five studios right now that can lay some sort of claim to that, to me, is really exciting,” he continues.“I’m really looking forward to playing C4. Really looking forward to playing whatever they’re doing over at Red Info. The latest stuff from Dark Math with Nightshift looks super cool. Can’t wait to play that. And I can’t wait to play what Summer Eternal is going to make. I’m really excited to see what they do.”
What We Can Expect From Hopetown
While we got a brief trailer for Hopetown, it is in the very early stages of development. Roberts says that work began around six months ago, and there’s still much to do, but he gives me the elevator pitch for the project.
“We’re describing it as a story-rich, isometric CRPG with deep, branching conversations, sharply written characters, and a world that reacts in unpredictable ways,” he says. “It’s going to be a game about exploration and conversation, both inside and outside your own mind.”
Unfortunately, there isn’t anything concrete to see right now.
“We are still building out the world and defining the plot of the game and what all the characters are going to be and stuff like that,” he tells me. “A lot of the time has been spent getting ready for our Kickstarter. It’s a lot of work to do, especially as a brand-new studio. […] We are all very much looking forward to ending this phase where we’re making content about the game and going back to making the game.”
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Roberts says it’s “fair to say” that the team are still working out some core mechanics, and that includes companions. Right now, Roberts isn’t sure how many the player will have. “We are looking into that. I would really love to explore having multiple companions in the game. It’s not something that we’ve tested or prototyped to see how it feels yet.
“It is something we have to be very smart about as a new studio that is making their first game. […] I think we’re almost certainly going to have more than one possible companion at the very least, if not multiple, who will come with you along the way. […] We’ll just have to see if it makes sense for Hopetown.”
However, Roberts says that there won’t be much more to figure out in this way, as the team doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel.
“We’re not trying to innovate in a major way from a systems perspective, from a mechanical design perspective,” he argues. “There is a strong history in this genre of things being established and then becoming iconic systems and iconic things that you can count on. And so I don’t think we’re looking to break the mold when it comes to that kind of mechanics based innovation. We’re going to build something that is familiar to people.”
Something that Roberts says will be unique is the psychogeography and journalism systems. As per the Kickstarter, psychogeography means that “traditional mechanics like keys and levers are replaced by emotions, memories, and conversations”. As for journalism, we will decide what kind of work our journalist protagonist produces, which will affect the story. Roberts says that the team has a “pretty good sense” of how these will work right now.
The Kickstarter opened today and has been updated with more information on the game.
Something that both Roberts and Sobolewski say won’t be used in the game is generative AI. This was raised by some in the Disco community due to Sobolewski’s background in AI, so he went into further detail about this when we spoke.
“I have a PhD in AI, and I do enjoy doing that and developing AI apps and consulting companies with regards to implementing AI in their processes,” Sobolewski tells me.” But when I play a game, or I read a book, or I listen to some music, or I watch a movie, I always try to look at the art piece through what the artist was feeling or was trying to communicate through that art piece.
“I think that’s how many sensitive people are taking in and digesting art,” he continues. “And since I used the word digesting, I can make a reference to food. Making games and creating art is almost very similar to cooking because you also digest that, and you either feel that it’s tasty or not. […] When I try to consume the content, at least created by today’s AI, I feel like I’m eating plastic.”
He goes into further detail about how he would personally use AI. “In my doings as an AI consultant, I use it mainly as a digester of unstructured data because AI can understand human language. It’s a perfect tool when you have to either summarize tons of text or extract specific information or help you streamline your process when you manually have to input some data to some systems.
“I’m not against using AI tools in game dev for this purpose, but not to feed the players with whatever comes out from an algorithm because that’s not the point of creating art, and games are art.”
Roberts then added his own views on AI, saying that, “From the creative side of things, our writing will come from writers and our art will come from artists. That’s true of what we put out already. That will be true.”
The Tone Of Hopetown
Disco Elysium isn’t the only inspiration for Hopetown. On a personal level, Roberts cites Planescape Torment as a game that’s always left an impact on him.
“Planescape was the first one that etched itself into my memory as games could be something more than what they had been before,” he says. “I think that’s true about a lot of the ones that we’re inspired by, all the way through Disco Elysium and Baldur’s Gate 3.”
The original Fallout is also listed as an inspiration.
As for the tone, Roberts says that it will be more than what we saw in the first screenshot of dialogue on the Kickstarter, in which we could respond to a woman feeding some pigeons by saying, “EAT UP, SKY RATS!”
“It was never meant to be taken out as like, ‘We’re debuting the writing for Hopetown. Here it is’,” he explains.“It’s fair to take that image as the debut of the writing of Hopetown, because we hadn’t done it before or put out anything publicly before. But that image was more meant to show what a typical conversation could be in the game. Here’s how our systems are going to work in the game.
“I wouldn’t say that the writing in that image is necessarily going to be a template for how we do the rest of the game,” he concludes. “To be honest, it’s going to be a cocktail that’s unlike anything that’s ever come before, because it can’t help but be that way. We’re making something new with people that are new and people that are old.”
How Longdue Feels As The Kickstarter Opens
On the whole, there’s a lot more attention on Longdue because of its claims that Hopetown could be a Disco Elysium successor – for better and worse. It will have much to prove as the Kickstarter opens, and that is something that the team is aware of.
“I am feeling stressed out right now, if I had to be honest,” Roberts admits. “I’ve been making games for a long time, and this is the first time in a long time that I’ve been building something from the ground up and putting it out into the world via the Kickstarter way earlier than we ordinarily would.
“It’s really exciting to do that, to give people a peek into what we’re doing and ask for their support and see if they like it. And it’s really exciting to see this world that we’ve built over the last however many months finally making its debut.”
Sobolewski hasn’t been on the team as long as Roberts, but he is feeling confident as development ramps up.
“I think that, from my perspective, I just joined last month as an advisor, I’m just one foot in. I’m looking at the team [and] they are so talented. They can really do something new,” he wraps up.
“The team consists of many people who loved Disco and who love CRPGs. And since Disco opened a new genre for games, I wouldn’t say that we want to, you know, become Disco, or should become a Disco-successor […] I rather feel that it will be something totally new.
“You can’t make an extraordinary thing unless you’re the consumer of this product as well. You can’t produce something extraordinary unless you totally understand and feel the great taste of what you’re creating. And I think this sums it up. I look at the team, and I see so much talent and passion. Properly led, it can end up with an astonishing and extraordinary thing.”
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Longdue
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Longdue