Disco Elysium’s studio ZA/UM has been the subject of a nasty drama in recent months, with it ousting the game’s key developers in an allegedly very dishonest scheme. But everyone wants a piece of Disco Elysium’s fame, and its creators have a chance to make something similar, albeit from different teams.
After the conflict, DE devs were scattered around and opened 3 new studios – Longdue, Dark Math Games, and Summer Eternal – at the same time at that, a truly bizarre coincidence. But it doesn’t end here: ZA/UM and Longdue have both released trailers for their upcoming projects the same day.
ZA/UM’s PROJECT [C4] is a “genre-defining” large-scale RPG, a “mind-warping story of espionage and team-building in an original yet achingly familiar setting” where you play as an Operant, “locked in a vicious, clandestine struggle for truth and influence.” Whatever you think about the company now, the teaser is intriguing and will most likely appeal to Disco Elysium lovers with its weird visuals.
ZA/UM
ZA/UM
ZA/UM
However, the internet remembers all, so the comment section under the video is not gentle with ZA/UM’s feelings.
“‘We brought you Disco Elysium’ I wish I had the confidence to be this brazen, wow,” said one viewer.
“Who is this ‘we’ exactly? The Estonian cultural movement whose name and logo you appropriated, while making sure you thoroughly destroyed its spirit, is what brought us Disco Elysium,” added another.
“‘ChatGPT, generate me a paragraph imitating the writing style of the Estonian cultural association ZA/UM. Make it sound like it was written by a freshman philosophy student. Gesture vaguely at political themes without saying anything substantial. Be sure to include words like ‘conspiracy’ and ‘ideology’, market research indicates that our audience really likes those,'” commented a disgruntled YouTube user.
Not surprisingly, Longdue’s teaser fared much better.
Its Hopetown is a psychological RPG where your choices “reshape reality itself.” The trailer is brought to life by the deep voice of Disco Elysium’s narrator Lenval Brown. The visual style looks more like that epic story than what ZA/UM presented, for better or for worse.
Longdue
Longdue
Longdue
“Built on the legacy of classic isometric RPGs, Hopetown is for those who crave deep, intelligent, story-first experiences.”
Longdue doesn’t have ZA/UM’s budgets, so the game will start crowdfunding soon, and I’m sure the campaign will be successful based on what viewers have to say.
“It looks promising especially when you compare it to the slop that calls itself Disco Elysium successor and also released trailer today. You know which one I’m talking about,” one comment reads.
“Comparing these comments to [ZA/UM’s] is hilarious. Hearing that voice again…. Man. I love it. Can’t wait to play this someday,” shared another.
We also need to keep an eye on Dark Math Games with its detective RPG XXX Nightshift featuring a “unique companion dynamic” and Summer Eternal’s “cultural megaproject, a role-playing game with complexity and ambition worthy to rival our wretched and wonderful world.”
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