The developers behind groundbreaking RPG Disco Elysium famously (infamously) shouted out Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, authors of The Communist Manifesto, while accepting their 2019 GOTY win at The Game Awards. As has been the case with Marx and Engels' own legacy, however, the question of who is creating the true Disco Elysium successor has devolved into messy factionalism (with no fewer than three studios emerging on Friday alone) in a sadly ironic turn for the sad, ironic game.
For those of you keeping score at home (thanks for the assist, TheGamer and IGN), that's a total of five claimants to the Disco Elysium throne, each with varying degrees of legitimacy. The playing field currently looks like this: Original developer (and official IP holder) ZA/UM is seemingly out of the race, having cancelled in 2024 (!!!) a Disco spinoff about "one of the [game's] most beloved characters", which reportedly could have been out in 2025.
Longdue Games is a 12-person outfit boasting several former ZA/UM employees, ex-Bungie, and Rockstar developers. Its unannounced game will be a "psychogeographic RPG," with the studio citing Fallout and Ultima as inspirations.
Dark Math Games has the most to show for itself, countering with a trailer for XXX Nightshift, which certainly looks and sounds quite Disco. Like holy relics, Dark Math has reportedly gathered almost a dozen devs who worked on either the original game or Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, with a total headcount of around twenty.
Then, again on the same day, Summer Eternal, which boasts two of the game's original five writers, dropped a big, red manifesto, claiming to be "artistically driven, creatively led, worker and player owned"; it seeks crowd-funding to create a successor by the people, for the people. Throwing some shade, Summer Eternal went on the offensive: "We must be living at the dawn of a cultural Golden Age, when like mushrooms after rain, the companies promising ‘the next Disco Elysium’ are popping up every hour on the hour. It’s a sure sign that the fifth anniversary of the release of this monumental game is approaching, and every corporation wants a piece of the fortune."
Finally, and quite frankly, the most promising project of all involves the lead writer and the mind behind the universe, Robert Kurvitz, and essential art director Aleksander Rostov. Funded by NetEase, the twosome are reportedly working on something new at a studio called Red Info after they were both fired by ZA/UM, kicking off a messy legal spat and the entire sordid affair.
Was it inevitable that Disco Elysium's developers would fracture, forming rival, bickering factions, just like early adherents of socialism famously did? Rise up, seize the means of production, and make your own Disco Elysium in the comments section below.
[source thegamer.com, via ign.com]
Comments 14
No matter how many "successors" pop up and wants a shot at the Disco crown, it's going to take quite a bit of luck and skill to catch even part of what made the original such a gem of a game.
Either way, to make a deep and interconnected game that has any chance to live up to it's legacy will take years of hard work to put together. Cream tend to rise to the top, so it'll be interesting to see who will half-ass it and who will deliver.
Just imagine seeing Marx as an example of "some of the great people that came before us" while living in the 21st century...
> Sorry for taking the bait, but that's on @khayl
More games is always good, let's see what we get.
✊🏻
Something I learnt during field research from conservationists, if jackals are causing an issue the worst thing to do is kill one, maybe two. If you kill one of the dominant in the pack, the rest have a tendency to disperse, all becoming dominant pairs as they create new packs. This made me think of that - personally I love Jackals, they rock, so hopefully all these new studios will too!
I only got a few hours into Disco Elysium before realizing the save I was playing was bugged. Never went back to it but I loved what I played. I don't mind devs chasing that game's brilliance because it is uniquely, singularly well done and more games in its same vein are welcome.
Wow! As someone who will rate Disco Elysium as a masterpiece of art and gaming I was waiting for this article - but I only knew of the two earlier announcements. I am sad that the team disintegrated into so many factions - we needed them to flip the finger to ZA/UM's evil overlord (seriously, ***** that guy) and band together to create something. But okay - I would trust everyone to create something good. Except for the eternal douchenozzle owning ZA/UM.
Longdue games - sounds like a small team. I would be interested in a more combat-focused roleplaying game, so this is cool news. But WHAT is psychogeography?
XXX Nightshift - Dark Math Games: sounds like a rough version of a DE game with a female narrator. I like the hint that this is adult material, and I think the final product could be amazing if they tweak the sound of the narration to the heights of DE.
Summer eternal - didn't know about this one, but I like the style and panache of their manifesto. Not much more to go on - but the writing seem to be covered in this endeavor. I think the first one was very inspiring to the staff and every attempt at game making is now different as a result - their line about corporations seem unfair if all these game studios are small indie operations? Are any backed by collosal companies?
Finally, we have the Kurvitz/Rostov alliance which admittedly I know nothing about. I don't know if they could create a universe and city quite like Revachol, but I am VERY interested and they have my faith.
In fact, they all do - they all have Cool ingredients, and I guess many of the same instincts. I mean, how often do we get a triple announcement on the same day about spiritual successors. How crazy it would be if all were bangers and of very high quality.
What made Disco Elysium so good was the whacky ***** we could do with the MC. I can’t see how that would’ve worked without changing the tone/theme of how the first game played with Kim as the MC. I think he’s an excellent partner. But unless the spin off went in a completely different direction, I dont know how it’d work tbh
Summer Eternal have a fantastic manifesto, so it’s them and Red Info I’m going to be following closely. Skeptical about the other studios but I won’t complain about getting new RPGs. If 3/5 manage to knock out great games then Disco will have had an even greater impact on our industry than any could imagine.
One of the greatest games ever made, difficult to live up to but if they made something of a spin off that was half as good as Disco it would still be amazing!
Regarding the last paragraph, think about how the bourgeois capitalist class tirelessly worked their propaganda to make the working class believe that socialism is NOT in their (our) best interest! Looking forward to see more of every each one of them, comrades.
Join a union!
My money's on the studio with the writer/universe creator & key artist with NetEase funding. That sounds like the ingredients needed to really build something special again
These are the devs who had a poster of joseph stalin on their office wall. Not kidding. Probably one of the few historical leaders more evil than Hitler. That story in itself is probably 100 times more alarming than any social issue you will ever hear a games journalist write about
Disco Elyseum is a very good demonstration that Marxism is always ultimately leading to pure ultra capitalism and fascism. The authors believed they were smart enough to promote communism and they were eaten by human nature. History repeats itself again and again. Still an artwork masterpiece though, one of the best games and RPG ever made.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...