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 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.”
So what makes a ZA/UM game unique? For Ulas, it’s the wide range of people with different skill sets that makes the team unique. “We have a lot of people who come from different walks of life, rather than just video games,” she said. “I’m trained as a contemporary artist, there are people who come from a fashion background and traditional 2D art and so on.
“Working together is what sets us apart, I think, and also going through these difficult and challenging times as a studio and growing as a team throughout. When I wake up in the morning and log on to do my work, that’s what motivates me.”
In a presentation, the pair showed me the contrasting subjective and objective worlds of C4, each with their own art style and gameplay elements. The objective world, for instance, includes a greyed overlay as the player character checks his watch, while the subjective world is full of surreal art to convey the psychology of the player.
Indeed, with C4, the team is intending to explore the human mind and its complexities as the protagonist operant adopts multiple covers and struggles with his sense of self. Inside his thought cabinet, players will be able to reinforce or suppress thoughts, which will not only impact how the narrative plays out, but provide dissonances as it progresses – perhaps adopting a new cover will cause reinforced perceptions to change. Choices will be influenced not only by dice rolls but by three key limits: anxiety, deliriousness, and fatigue.
All of which is to say that C4 looks set to be another wildly intellectual video game from ZA/UM, with a gritty espionage tone far removed from the typical James Bond-esque fare. The remaining team at the studio seems capable of a worthy Disco Elysium follow-up, but whether it can stand above its peers remains to be seen.