Update: In response to today's story, ZA/UM has issued the following statement: "Like any video game, the development of Disco Elysium was and still is a collective effort, with every team member’s contribution essential and valued as part of a greater whole. At this time, we have no further comment to make other than the ZA/UM creative team’s focus remains on the development of our next project, and we are excited to share more news on this with you all soon."
Original Story: Key members of ZA/UM, the studio responsible for the incredible narrative RPG, Disco Elysium, have left the company in an "involuntary" manner, it has been announced. The news comes to us by way of Martin Luiga, an editor who worked on Disco Elysium and assembled the core team that would ultimately create the game, in a post over on Medium. Luiga also announced the dissolution of the ZA/UM Cultural Association, not to be confused with the studio itself.
According to Luiga, lead writer and designer Robert Kurvitz, writer Helen Hindpere, and art and design lead Aleksander Rostov have not been working at ZA/UM "since the end of last year and their leaving the company was involuntary".
As anyone who has played Disco Elysium knows, the writing and art direction define the experience of the game, and these departures are particularly sorely felt. Kurvitz claims to have developed the insanely imaginative world of Disco Elysium as a teenager and has written a book (In Estonian, not yet available in English) called Sacred and Terrible Air, set in the same universe.
However, it may not all be doom and gloom, as Luiga elaborates in a reply on Twitter.
The reasons for the departures remain unclear, but Luiga suggests differences between the creatives and the "money people" could be the cause, which is just about the most Disco Elysium thing ever.
What do you think of this entire situation? Are you a fan of Disco Elysium? Are you hopeful for the future of the series? Sing a sad, slow song in the comments section below.
[source medium.com, via resetera.com]
Comments 16
@riceNpea Haha good catch, thanks for that. Updated
My wife is currently playing through it and we both absolutely love the world - the characters, art style, score, voice acting, plot, historical inspirations, political themes... It all just perfectly tessellates.
So to read that some of those most responsible for its creation have left the fold, well... That hurts. Big time. Disco Elysium definitely deserves sequels but without those minds involved I'm very skeptical of whether any would pass muster.
Very sad.
Removed - foreign languages
That’s such a blow. I don’t see he losing two of the most important writers and the art guy won’t have any effect on the sequel. Severely hampered my excitement for anything coming out of the studio now.
This is very bad news. I did think something was up at EGX when they were displaying a merchandise stand with jackets costing £350. Slightly against the spirit of the game.
Oh, how ***** ironic that capitalism is ***** up the most promising developer in the business. Should’ve seen the writing on the wall when they decided to turn Disco Elysium into an Amazon series.
Hopefully the three involved will stay in the industry and stay united. Such talent can’t go wasted because of greed.
Stalinists love a good purge.
While it's never great to see folks getting s***canned, it feels important to note that we know almost nothing about what went on, and we also don't know for sure how much the leads contributed to how great their last game was.
I'd like to hope that they both find something great to work on, whether it's their own thing, or joining an existing project.
@prince_myshkin
Kind of ironic that a corporation that is so blatantly anti-union is producing a tv series adaptation of a video game that has a pro-union message. That alone screams it will be a very unfaithful adaptation.
@PegasusActual93 No doubt. But I think ZA/UM is a very different entity now than it was pre Disco Elysium.
At the end of the day the people who were forced out have themselves to blame for selling out to the wrong people and extent where they lost control of their own company.
@prince_myshkin
I am pretty sure them "selling out" we will come to find out was just accepting an offer in order to keep the lights on. This is the story with many entities. Newgrounds for just one example had to have porn ads on their site for a while in the early 2000s just to stay afloat after the dot com bubble burst. Doesn't mean they were proud of it as they refuse to acknowledge that chapter of their history to this day. At the end of the day if you had to choose between ideology and continuing to put food on the table most would take food.
Doesn't bode well for the sequel.
Still need to play the original!
@KaijuKaiser Never declared myself a commie, and I’m aware of the developers’ beliefs. Nevertheless, I consider Disco Elysium to be one of the best written pieces of fiction of this century, and I feel frustrated if this talent is wasted because of greed and want.
The writing was incredible, so this is quite worrying. Such a great game, might have to go back and play it again.
@KaijuKaiser I’m not sure if you know but the members of the original ZA/UM collective are from Estonia, where as your comment seems to imply that you think they are from some western country completely disconnected from the history of the USSR.
I reckon the Stalin portrait is just irony / edgy trolling as based on the game itself and the way they present themselves online, they seem more like Situationists than Stalinists.
Well dudes and dudettes, it was kinda foretold in the game itself (in the story of the defunct radio game developer).
Tap here to load 16 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...