Writer, designer and art director Disco Elysium leave studio ZA/UM
The writer, art director and designer of the popular indie game Disco Elysium have left studio ZA/UM. The developers confirm this on Twitter. According to Martin Luiga, co-founder of ZA/UM, the developers left the company ‘involuntarily’.
Martin Luiga writes in a blog post that he has dissolved the Cultural Association of ZA/UM, clarifying that this ‘cultural organisation’ is separate from the company itself. Luiga writes that three core developers of the studio have already left the studio at the end of 2021. These include Aleksander Rostov, Disco Elysium’s art director, designer and writer Robert Kurvitz, and writer Helen Hindpere.
“I want to note that neither Kurvitz nor Hindpere nor Rostov since the end of last year [bij ZA/UM] works and that their departure was involuntary,” Luiga reported. This was not previously known. Luiga wrote that this seems bad news for people waiting for a sequel to Disco Elysium, although he later wrote on Twitter that the sequel is ‘well’.
The co-founder writes in his blog post that ZA/UM “no longer represents the ethos it is built on.” Luiga seems in a second blog post blaming early investors for changing ZA/UM and the departure of several employees from the studio. The developer signed his blog post on October 1 from the Tallinn Inpatient Treatment Center of Psychiatry Clinic.
Aleksander Rostov confirmed on Sunday that he, Robert Kurvitz and Helen Hindpere no longer work at the studio. The developer makes no further statement, nor does it confirm that the three left ZA/UM involuntarily, as Luiga claims. SA/UM registers a statement to Eurogamer that the team remains focused on releasing its next game, about which the studio will share more information ‘soon’. The developer had no comment on Luiga’s blog posts and the departures of Rostov, Kurvitz and Hindpere.
Disco Elysium is a role-playing game that came out in 2019. The game follows an amnesiac detective who must solve a murder case. The game was generally well received for its story and unique art style. Studio ZA/UM was recently looking for a developer with ‘a love for science fiction and space’, also writes PCGamer.