ZA/UM Studio, the company behind Disco Elysium, just announced a new game called Project [C4]. It’s being described as a “genre-defining RPG” and there’s a teaser trailer that’s light on gameplay but heavy on disturbing imagery.
Based on the trailer, we still don’t know if the game will pull mechanics or visuals from the highly-regarded Disco Elysium. A press release did note that folks would play as a spy of some kind and suggested that the game could actually, in part, take place in the human brain. Everything else is still shrouded in secrecy.
What’s not shrouded in secrecy? ZA/UM has had, to put it lightly, a tumultuous several years since Disco Elysium was released in 2019. It has been plagued by layoffs, firings and departures of the core team that made Disco Elysium, including creator Robert Kurvitz, art director Aleksander Rostov and writer Helen Hindpere.
Back in 2022, the company’s new executive suite fired all three, accusing them of misconduct and attempted intellectual property theft. It’s worth noting that Kurvitz wrote the novel that Disco Elysium is based on, so we aren’t sure how someone could steal from their own book. Lawsuits were filed and Kurvitz and Rostov set up their own company.
The pair also refuted the allegations of IP theft, writing in an open letter that they were fired as they attempted to investigate suspicious activity surrounding the takeover of ZA/UM by Estonian businessmen Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel. These two were previously convicted of investment fraud. The pair has also been accused of creating a hostile work environment, particularly for women.
"I know at least five women who've left or been made to leave the studio since Disco’s launch, naming Tõnis Haavel as a major factor. There are zero women in creative leadership and very few women in leadership positions in general,” a former writer for Disco Elsyium told PC Gamer amidst recent company-wide layoffs.
A handful of other previous ZA/UM employees recently formed a dev company called Longdue to create a new game that acts as a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium. Kurvitz and Rostov’s company, Red Info, is said to be making a new game with the financial backing of NetEase, but no concrete details have been released.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-studio-that-technically-made-disco-elysium-has-a-new-game-in-the-works-185218695.html?src=rss
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