There’s apparently no bad blood between Disco Elysium devs at studio ZA/UM and former colleagues at rival studios. After multiple lawsuits were filed, an initial split between the studio and several staff members happened in 2021.
The split resulted in several new rival studios popping up full of seasoned devs making games they’ve called «spiritual successors» to Disco Elysium.
One of those games is XXX Nightshift from Dark Math Games. Timo Albert, who left ZA/UM, is the director of the new game from the studio that describes itself as a «breakaway group from the original development team of Disco Elysium.»
Currently, ZA/UM is working on a mobile version of Disco Elysium designed to appeal to TikTok users, as well as C4, an espionage RPG where, «Betrayal is only possible in the presence of love.»
ZA/UM Calls Former Colleagues New Projects «Friendly Competition»
Despite how things ended between ZA/UM and several staff members, the UK Studio doesn’t seem to harbor any grudges. Speaking with Eurogamer at the most recent Game Developer’s Conference, principal game writer Siim Sinamäe praised his former colleagues branching out on their own:
From his comments, it’s clear Sinamäe is excited for what these new studios will produce. He also believes these new projects will only push ZA/UM to make better games:
So what does all this mean for a project in the works like C4? If Sinamäe’s sentiment is sincere, the game should blow away already sky-high expectations. Not only is it a follow-up to one of the best games of the last decade, but it’s also one that has forced ZA/UM to evaluate itself from both inside and outside.
We should also have high expectations for games coming from new studios such as Dark Math Games and Longdue, the latter of which recently launched their «spiritual successor» to Disco Elysium on Kickstarter.
Disco Elysium originally released in 2019 and won multiple awards, including «Best Independent Game» and «Best Role-Playing Game» at The Game Awards that year.
9 / 10
Дискотека Elysium
системы
Выпущенный 15 октября 2019 ESRB M Для лиц старше 17 лет из-за наличия крови, сексуальных тем, ненормативной лексики, употребления наркотиков и насилия 12 долларов США в Xbox Games StoreСмотреть в Playstation Store 40 долларов США в Nintendo eShop 16 долларов США в WalmartСмотреть в Best Buy 18 долларов США в Amazon 40 долларов США в SteamСмотреть в PlayStation Plus ExtraСмотреть в PlayStation Plus Premium
