Final week noticed no fewer than three sport studios launch as “religious successors” to Studio ZA/UM, the developer chargeable for the masterpiece that’s Disco Elysium. It was across the fifth anniversary of the sport’s launch, so it was solely pure that each former developer wished to get in on the motion.
The primary I used to be made conscious of was Longdue, which says it has employed former Disco Elysium builders to make its as-of-yet untitled religious successor, however refuses to call any of them. There’s not loads to go on with this one, aside from the truth that the studio says it has former Disco devs on the staff, says it’s engaged on a religious successor to the long-lasting CRPG, and says it’ll be good. I’ll want just a little extra info earlier than pinning my hopes on this one.
Darkish Math Video games additionally introduced a religious successor to Disco Elysium on the identical day, and has extra credentials to again it up. Darkish Math’s XXX NIGHTSHIFT appears to be like startlingly just like Disco, and the DNA is evident to see from the screenshots. Personnel-wise, one of many studio’s founders is Timo Albert, who labored as a movement graphic designer at ZA/UM.
IGN additionally adopted the path of breadcrumbs to Corporations Home, which incorporates particulars of earlier (and present) possession or board standing of any companies registered within the UK. Right here, it lists controversial determine Kaur Kender as a resigned director of Darkish Math Video games. Kender was embattled in a bitter authorized dispute with ZA/UM final 12 months based mostly on the possession of the Disco Elysium IP. It makes you marvel if Darkish Math’s sport appears to be like so just like Disco Elysium as a result of the builders thought they could have the rights to the IP.
Summer season Everlasting has the perfect shout of making a real religious successor to Disco Elysium, due to the truth that it’s based by Argo Tuulik, who was sat across the RPG desk with Robert Kurvitz because the latter crafted the world of Revachol and every thing inside it. Tuulik approached IGN to clarify that his studio is stuffed from prime to backside with Disco Elysium alumni, publishing an exhaustive checklist together with Olga Moskvina, Lenval Brown, Dora Klindžić, Anastasia Ivanova, Michael Oswell, and Aleksandar Gavrilović, alongside Tuulik himself.
None of those studios or their video games are associated to Disco Elysium creator Robert Kurvitz and artwork director Aleksander Rostov, who’re engaged on their very own religious successor at NetEase-backed Crimson Data, taking the entire of ZA/UM offshoots as much as 4.
It’s this final studio that has piqued my curiosity. “We announce at present our personal imaginative and prescient of a worker-owned co-operative, a fancy construction that may be certain that not solely moneylenders however each employee, each artistic, even each participant, has a seat on the desk,” reads a press release from the corporate. It’s very becoming, very Disco Elysium, and really consistent with early ZA/UM’s values.
Summer season Everlasting is desiring to crowdfund its studio, promising a worker- and player-owned artist’s collective. It seems like how Studio ZA/UM was based, by artists eager to make artwork, and I hope that every one of its lofty targets will be achieved.
However essentially the most fascinating a part of this entire ordeal is Tuulik’s interview with IGN. In addition to the Lord of the Rings references – the studios scrambling to be the ‘true’ Disco Elysium religious successor are like “the scene from Lord of the Rings, the place Arwen is taking Frodo to Rivendell with the ringwraiths giving chase horseback and proper earlier than the river scene you lastly see all 9 experience collectively to cease Frodo? It is sort of like that.” – he desires to keep away from Disco Elysium comparisons.
Summer season Everlasting is making an RPG, however Tuulik says it’s “positively not a Disco Elysium sequel.” That’s sufficient to get me on board. Of the 5 studios at the moment vying to be the true Disco Elysium successor (that’s Longdue, Darkish Math, Summer season Everlasting, Crimson Data and ZA/UM itself, when you’re counting), that is essentially the most fascinating to me. Summer season Everlasting isn’t concerned about making a religious successor to Disco Elysium, however a religious successor to ZA/UM itself. The ZA/UM of the early days, earlier than the cash lenders and authorized disputes.
I’ll be following every considered one of these studios and their video games carefully, however the announcement that struck me as most fascinating from this weekend is that of Summer season Everlasting. From its hanging black and purple web site, to its workers checklist, to its profanity-strewn manifesto, this feels essentially the most like Disco Elysium. And I need a sport that makes me really feel.
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