Studio ZA/UM has finally issued a response to the ongoing situation regarding several members of Disco Elysium’s development team suddenly leaving the company.
In a Medium post shared on Saturday, former ZA/UM editor Martin Luiga revealed numerous key people behind Disco Elysium, including writers Robert Kurvitz and Helen Hindpere along with art lead Aleksander Rostov, were “involuntary” ousted from the company.
“I, Martin Luiga, a founding member and Secretary of the ZA/UM cultural association, as well as the assembler of most of the core team, am hereby dissolving the ZA/UM cultural association,” Luiga said. “The reason for dissolving the cultural organization is that it no longer represents the ethos it was founded on. People and ideas are meant to be eternal; organizations may well be temporary.”
Luiga also notes that the cultural association shouldn’t be confused with ZA/UM as a studio — which Kurvitz, Hindpere, and Rostov haven’t been part of since 2021.
Given that these developers were integral to the success of Disco Elysium, many fans were pretty upset over this news. Since, you know — games with great stories are primarily brought to life by writers, and those responsible for penning a much-beloved narrative like Disco Elysium not being involved in future installments don’t sound all that promising.
On Monday, ZA/UM addressed the departures publicly.
“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,” reads ZA/UM’s statement on Twitter. “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.”
What this means for Disco Elysium‘s sequel is anybody’s guess, but the situation is pretty surprising nonetheless.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
