Disco Elysium sequel loses three key developers "involuntarily"

By Tom West,

Disco Elysium's sequel has lost three key developers in an "involuntary" manner and the ZA/UM Cultural Association has been dissolved, but we can apparently still expect a sequel.

ZA/UM Cultural Association founding member and Disco Elysium editor, Martin Luiga, has posted "The Dissolution of the ZA/UM Cultural Association" on Medium, an announcement that the collective has been dissolved, and that three of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut's key developers left the company at the end of last year "involuntarily."

Disco Elysium 2 is still in development, and looks "sweet enough"


In the post on Medium, Luiga said: “I would note that neither Kurvitz, Hindpere nor Rostov are working there since the end of last year and their leaving the company was involuntary." Robert Kurvitz was Disco Elysium's writer and designer, Helen Hindpere was a writer for the game, and Aleksander Rostov was the lead art and design developer. The trio's leaving has been confirmed by Rostov on Twitter, in a post that only says: "We confirm that we are no longer at the studio — Aleksander Rostov, Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere."

“I find that the organization was successful overall and most of the mistakes that were made were contingent, determined by the sociocultural conditions we were thrown into," Luiga said in the post announcing that the collective between ZA/UM Cultural Association and developer ZA/UM has now been dissolved. “I still encourage people to organize, and I would say that one of the qualities that the ZA/UM cultural organization sorely lacked was pretty much any formal structure."

In a statement given to PC Gamer, ZA/UM said: "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."

We can still expect to see a sequel to the 2019 RPG hit, though, as when replying to a comment on Twitter, Luiga wrote: "I think that things with the sequel are actually sweet enough, you might even get it the way it was meant, it might take a s**t ton of time but RPG fans are sorta accustomed to waiting, ain't they?"

What do you make of this news? Will you be hoping for a Disco Elysium sequel? Drop a comment below and let us know!
Tom West
Written by Tom West
Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with systems like the Nintendo 64 and Playstation until he eventually fell in love with the Xbox 360. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not achievement hunting, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online.
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