As Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM continues development on its espionage follow-up C4, staff have described the friendly competition with rival projects from developers who have since left the studio in the wake of messy lawsuits.
Key team members from ZA/UM left in 2021 prior to multiple lawsuits filed against the studio, which have since been resolved. In the wake of this, a number of studios have been newly founded and are releasing projects all claiming to be spiritual successors to Disco Elysium – that includes Longdue and its “psychogeographic RPG” Hopetown, and XXX Nightshift from Dark Math Games, a developer which describes itself as a “breakaway group from the original development team of Disco Elysium”.
ZA/UM itself is working on C4, as well as a mobile adaptation of Disco Elysium to “captivate the TikTok user”. I had the chance to speak to lead producer Ruudu Ulas and principal writer Siim (Kosmos) Sinamäe at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC).
“This, let’s say, situation has really built the character of the team in a good way,” said Sinamäe. “Each artist faces certain hardships in their artistic practice. This is what makes them better.”
“But of course, I’m really excited to see what each one of the studios that has grown out of ZA/UM will show over the next months and years,” added Ulas.
I asked the pair if there was friendly competition between the studios. “For us, always we think it’s friendly competition,” said Sinamäe. “We’re not going to really think about what the other writers are doing, or the studios… how can I be better at my own craft? We’re competing essentially against ourselves in this way of can we take it further? Do we have to make any compromises? I think it absolutely sets us apart.”