Friday morning, two studios announced their formation from the former Disco Elysium development team, both said to be working on a spiritual successor.
For the fourth time, another studio, composed of former ZA/UM developers, announced its opening today. The first studio is called Longdue, and on their official website, they claim, “We’re a brand new independent RPG studio embarking on a daring new journey,” with a dozen staff members, some of whom worked on Disco Elysium. While this is the third such announcement, it’s worth noting that Longdue Studios has already posted some concept art, suggesting that whatever they’re working on is still a ways off.
On the other hand, yet another studio (bringing the total of former Disco Elysium dev-led studios to four) called Dark Math Games (you guessed it) composed of developers from the former ZA/UM development team has also been announced today. This studio is working on a new title called XXX Nightshift, it’s a detective RPG that looks a lot like Disco Elysium. The trailer of the work-in-progress title can be seen below.
While both studios appear to be hard at work on their not-Disco Elysium RPG titles, the reason for the formation of the now four new studios stems from strife at development studio ZA/UM. The studio, responsible for bringing Disco Elysium to life, conducted quarter-of-staff layoffs earlier in 2024. In February, it was reported that the planned DLC for the title was cancelled, along with a potential sequel, by SI’s Video Games. Writer Argo Tuulik metaphorically described the studio’s woes, stating, “The fish starts rotting from the head,” as a way to explain how ZA/UM faltered before the layoffs. Tuulik was also affected.
Another principal writer on the now-cancelled projects, Dora Klindžić, spoke out, citing “The last two months of X7 were rife with crunch, burnout, and conflict,” in reference to the work culture at ZA/UM. X7 was the codename for a potential Disco Elysium sequel.
Although ZA/UM continues to face challenges, there are now four studios in the running to create a new detective RPG in the style of Disco Elysium, and these teams include former ZA/UM members who were made redundant.
