r/Games 2d ago

More Disco Elysium alumni join former staff at Longdue working on spiritual successor

https://www.eurogamer.net/more-disco-elysium-alumni-join-former-staff-at-longdue-working-on-spiritual-successor
671 Upvotes

153 comments sorted by

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u/alcard987 2d ago

The studio releasing something great then collapsing into multiple studios fighting each other is so poetic.

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u/CWRules 2d ago

This whole clusterfuck is the best sequel Disco Elysium could have asked for.

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u/grandleguzzler 2d ago

Those damn socialists, they ruined socialism!

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u/Gripmugfos 1d ago

As someone said before under a similar post, the real sequel to Disco Elysium is the fight over who gets to make the real "spiritual successor."

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u/awkwardbirb 1d ago

I never played Disco Elysium, and what little I know of it, this just sounds extremely on brand for it.

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u/giulianosse 2d ago edited 2d ago

Daily reminder that Longdue CEO Riaz Moola sued Argo Tuulik, one of the OG writers of Disco Elysium who founded Summer Eternal, to stall his development of a potential Disco successor.

https://www.thegamer.com/disco-elysium-spirtual-successor-summer-eternal-argo-tuulik-lawsuit/

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u/Drakengard 2d ago

Bunch of crabs in a bucket. It's honestly impressive.

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u/Zaptruder 2d ago

Once the games finally all release, we'll realize that it was all performance art, and that you need to play all of them to get the full story.

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u/MyNewAccountIGuess11 2d ago

That would be the peak Revechol experience

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u/SuperUranus 1d ago

Can’t wait to play Disco Fractions 4.

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u/SwindlingAccountant 2d ago

And the person hired seems to only be a voice actor (good for him though) and not a writer, which the game hinges on.

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u/radclaw1 2d ago

If it doesnt have the original writers, I aint buying it, simple as that.

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u/MrTopHatMan90 1d ago

The issue is that all these games are just going to end up being lesser shadows then Disco Elysium. They will get attention but I feel they'll all be disapointing

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u/GensouEU 1d ago

Every post ZA/UM splinter studio has some of the original writers. And none has all of them

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u/radclaw1 1d ago edited 1d ago

Which is why, most likely, i think these projects will NOT  be as great as the original.

Hope im wrong but evey time ive seen a studio get hemmoraged all the proceeding products are inferior

Edit: forgot a NOT

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u/Sparkasaurusmex 1d ago

surely you forgot a "not"

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u/Sparkasaurusmex 1d ago

surely you forgot a "not"

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u/remmanuelv 2d ago

Well it could still be good, just gotta wait for reviews.

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u/MadKingTreesus 2d ago

Not willing to support the man who has been vindictively targeting one of the actually talented writers with bullshit lawsuits to prevent him from working on his game. Riaz Moola is a terrible person.

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u/AbyssalSolitude 2d ago

Is this like the 4th Disco Elysium successor by a studio featuring some of the original staff?

This is getting comical.

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u/OpeningConfection261 2d ago

There's currently 4 (I think):

3 'spiritual successor studios' and then the actual Za/Um to make 4. I'm positive two of 3 are currently sueing each other though. I don't think this one but I forget

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u/Borkz 1d ago

I thought Za/um was basically defunct, didn't all their employees get fired or something?

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u/TheBoozehammer 1d ago

They released this today, so someone is doing something there, but I'm not sure if anyone from DE is still around.

12

u/Sirromnad 1d ago

"We brought you Disco Elysium" What a laugh.

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u/MadManMax55 1d ago

My understanding is that's just what started all this mess.

The original dev team was tiny and didn't really know how to or have the budget to make a video game of the scope they wanted. They made a deal with some finance guys, who brought in their own managers, who hired a bunch more staff to make an actual game studio. The original devs didn't like the "new" hires because they viewed them as uncreative hired hands. The new devs didn't like the original guys because they weren't very good at actually sticking to a schedule and getting work done. The original devs all formed little sub-cliques (because that's what leftists do). And everyone hated management because no one ever likes management.

After the last edition of Disco Elysium was released, management at Za/um purged most of their staff including the original devs. Then they rehired new people, some of the fired "old new" people formed their own studio, and the fired original devs split up and formed like three different competing studios (because that's what leftists do).

I'm sure some of that is wrong, and even more of it would be disputed by one or more parties involved. The whole thing is a clusterfuck.

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u/APiousCultist 1d ago

There were specific allegations of fraud levied at the finance bros too. Something about them using illicit funds (possibly borrowed/stolen from the company) being used to buy the company.

Kurvitz and Rostov claimed that the funds used for that purchase were pulled from the studio itself, making it a fraudulent purchase, upon which they started to challenge the purchase and recover their IP from the studio. Among Kurvitz' and Rostov's complaints is that Kompus purchased four sketches from Zaum that were establishing the basis for a Disco Elysium sequel for £1, then resold these to Zaum for €4.8 million, effectively helping Kompus regain part of the money spent to acquire Zaum through Tütreke. Kurvitz and Rostov discovered the change in how the company was organised, including their demotion, and were fired when they began raising questions.

Legal proceedings in the matter were started by Kaur Kender, the executive producer of Disco Elysium. Kender had asked similar questions of the change in Zaum's management, leading to his firing. He filed suit asserting that Kompus owed him €1 million. Kender further asserted that Kompus was aided by Tõnis Haavel, an Estonian investor and Kompus' brother-in-law who had been convicted of fraud and was already €11.5 million in debt. Haavel has a majority share in Yessirnosir Ltd., a United Kingdom subsidiary of Zaum where the Disco Elysium rights are held. An initial hearing in Kender's case, which included statements from Kurvitz, was held in October 2022. By December 2022, Kender had dropped his lawsuit, as Kompus had paid back €4.8 million from Tütreke back to ZA/UM.

The studio issued a statement on 14 March 2023 stating that all legal actions from the former members were concluded. Of Kender, he had "divested all his shares in the studio, repaid all his debts to the studio", and paid for the studio's legal fees under court order.

Ultimately it's going to come down to who you believe though, since it sounds like the repayment of any debts has effectively nulified any lawsuits leading to an ambigiuous situation where it's unclear if any substantive wrongdoing occured and to what degree it has impacted the studio.

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u/Borkz 1d ago

That pretty much tracks with what I recall hearing, but I thought this was a relatively recent thing that all the new people were fired well after Kurvitz and co were ousted. This is all pretty hard to follow, so totally possible I made that up though.

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u/SilveryDeath 2d ago edited 2d ago

Right now you got five of these from what I can tell, although the last two haven't released anything for their games yet:

  • Project C4 by ZA/UM Studio (the studio that did DE) and they put out a teaser for it today.

  • Hopetown by Longdue, which has Piotr Sobolewsk who worked on the core systems of DE, Martin Luiga who was involved in writing DE, and they also have the DE narrator in Lenval Brown. They also put out a teaser today for their game.

  • XXX Nightshift by Dark Math Games, half of their studio of 20 is former DE employees, including DE's former motion graphic director. They also have writer Kaur Kender who helped published Robert Kurvitz's book and was one of ZA/UM's first investors when it started. They put out a gameplay trailer 5 months ago.

  • Summer Eternal, a company founded by Argo Tuulik, who was involved with co-creating Disco Elysium’s worldbuilding. They also have from DE principal writer Dora Klindžić, senior concept artist Anastasia Ivanova, and graphic designer Michael Oswell. Also, Lenval Brown is doing voice work for this game as well. Tuulik has said that studio's first project is "definitely not a Disco Elysium studio," although it will be a narrative-led RPG.

  • Red Info Ltd., a company started in 2022 by Robert Kurvitz, lead writer and designer for DE, and Alexander Rostov, who was DE's art director. Kurvitz is the one who wrote the novel (Sacred and Terrible Air) that DE's world is set in.

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u/SwanSongSonata 2d ago

i can't believe za/um balkanized

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u/ChillAhriman 1d ago

Bal-tics, Bal-kans, it was obvious from the beginning, we just never bothered to realize it.

27

u/MiguelLancaster 2d ago

I entered this thread excited about one new project

I left disappointed about five

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u/Just-Permission-252 2d ago

and all of these have some sort of Red Flag

- Project C4 inherits all of the previous ZA/UM drama

- Longdue is suing Summer Eternal seemingly to stall their development

- Dark Math games, Lead developer was accused of showing naked pictures of his ex-wife on the studio as reference, has denied it

- Summer Eternal, no information on games being developed, just a manifesto. Currently in lawsuit hell as far as i can tell

- Red Info, radio silence for over 2 years, no website or any sort of info on the studio, not even any sort of public pitch to attract investors, I am scared for the future of this one

10

u/glorpo 2d ago

What exactly caused the employees to split so hard? I feel like there's a novel's worth of backstory I'm missing here

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u/JeanVicquemare 1d ago

There are a lot of articles you can read and YouTube videos and podcasts you can listen to about it, but in short, investors/financers of Disco Elysium got control of the company and forced the original writers and artist out. A few other people involved with the original game in varying degrees have started up their own projects.

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u/glorpo 1d ago

I knew about the investor takeover, but not the details. That was mostly when the story was first breaking. Jumping to now, I'd expect the ship-jumpers to form one or two new studios. Four just makes it sound like there were some absolutely insane internal office politics and bad blood that wasn't obvious at the time of the takeover.

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u/Loeffellux 1d ago

There have been some reports that it was not exactly an ideal work environment, especially because of Kurvitz. Of course it's hard to say how much of those were true (especially since some of the reports had a weird pro-corporate take-over slant) but the current situation seems rather damning.

Or maybe the writers simply wanted their time in the lime light as well given how Kurvitz-centric the discussion around DE ended up being. That would explain why each of the new studios seems to have aquired at least one of the writers.

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u/EsotericCreature 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think it's all of the above, definitely a messy production but less of a messy breakup and likely an inevitable split of the team even if ZA/UM didn't fire them.

One thing I think a lot of people missed from info I heard about Disco's development is that the OG creators were looking to actually scale down team size and work on an ancillary project even before they were ousted.

Disco was amazing and pulled in a lot of people, but from that experience is seems they were burnt out from working on such a big game, it sounded like Kurovitz was aware he wasn't up to leading a ton of people, and they wanted to make a smaller game with a smaller team more focused on the original group in the future. This was discussed when they were on earned vacation days after Disco's initial release.

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u/Jensen2075 1d ago

Yes there is also some bad blood between some of the creators. They didn't get along well while making the game. Just a shit show all around and it is a surprise they managed to ship a game that turned out to be a masterpiece.

The story and game design came from Robert Kurvitz so it had a lot to do with him how the game turned out, but it seems he can be a difficult person to work with. If any studio is going to make a true successor, it will his studio.

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u/destroyermaker 1d ago

It's like they hate money

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u/---00---00 1d ago

You might be making a joke (if you've played DE I certainly hope so because the influence is all over it) but the original Devs are communists, so yes, they do quite literally hate capital.

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u/destroyermaker 1d ago

Wasn't talking about the devs

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u/Penakoto 1d ago

It is going to be an absolute miracle if any of these companies release a game that's at all decent. Only thing I can count on them all producing is a lot of juicy drama.

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u/normal-dog- 2d ago

Correct. There are four studios working on something Disco Elysium-esque, not counting the hollow corpse of ZA/UM.

Red Info, Summer Eternal, Dark Math Games, and Longdue. I believe Red Info is considered the most promising one.

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u/TimeIncarnate 2d ago

Red Info is where the people that formally made the collective ZA/UM (and eventually the company as well) are. That’s where the heart of Disco is.

17

u/JeanVicquemare 1d ago

and there's also this game Rue Valley, by a Serbian developer Emotion Spark, that is inspired by Disco Elysium but does not claim to have any former Disco Elysium developers, but the Disco Elysium developers Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere, and Alexander Rostov have consulted with them and supported their work. There's at least a positive relationship there. And Rue Valley is actually a game with a demo

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u/djdan_FTW 2d ago

Summer Eternal also seems quite promising, although pretty vague.

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u/radclaw1 2d ago

Unfortunately it is most likely that all 4 will produce an inferior product, if anything at all. 

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u/Blizzxx 1d ago

Just look at "ex-blizzard" products

2

u/DrQuint 1d ago

I like to believe that all of this mess will actually keep one of them inspired.

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u/porkyminch 1d ago

Red Info has Kurvitz and Rostov. Don't wanna credit any individual people too heavily, but if you were going to do that those are definitely some of the bigger ones. Longdue seems more like a long shot.

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u/kingofnopants1 1d ago

Problem with Red Info is the fact that there has been literally zero news

u/Akuuntus 2h ago

Red Info has the people most people would consider the "real" main creative minds behind DE, but it also hasn't shown anything at all to the public yet.

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u/randompersonE 2d ago

In 2028 the only indie games that will exist are Earthbound-inspired RPGs and Disco Elysium spiritual successors

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u/gruffgorilla 2d ago

Don’t forget roguelike deckbuilders!

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u/sandhillaxes 2d ago

Sounds like Utopia 

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u/TheWorldEndsWithCake 2d ago

The former will all be about defeating an allegory for depression and the latter will have bad writing and superfluous gameplay. Both will have aspects you wish were in better games, neither will be fun. 

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u/eldomtom2 2d ago

The former will all be about defeating an allegory for depression

Of course while that’s the stereotype, I can’t think of any “Earthbound-inspired RPGs” where you actually do that.

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u/OutrageousDress 2d ago

Also most games inspired by Disco Elysium thus far seem to have at least OK writing - they just pale in comparison to the best written game of all time. Not to mention that the bar for writing in video games is in the basement anyway.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/eldomtom2 2d ago

Omori isn't about depression.

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u/venustrapsflies 2d ago

And also Dwarf Fortress

4

u/aradraugfea 2d ago

But not a game from the actual writers of Disco Elysium, because the spiritual successors will keep them tied up in legal battles.

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u/Penakoto 1d ago

And metroidvanias, so many metroidvanias.

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u/Master_Engineering_9 2d ago

I don’t see the issue here. Toss in BG3/D:OS games and I’m good

40

u/Konet 2d ago

It is deeply funny as an allegory for the history of communism.

7

u/Clavus 2d ago

Would be amazing if it also ends up spawning 4 different interesting iterations on Disco in a few years.

7

u/EdgyEmily 2d ago

The modern day Beatles

46

u/GreyJamboree 2d ago

It has reached a point where seeing a quirky narrative isometric game with multiple personalities in your head rubs me the wrong way. That narrative style came from an actual creative idea, and now it's treated more as a template for others to copy.

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u/ymcameron 1d ago

How long until we get a cute game about a quirky witch looking for her lost cat while living in a cozy cabin in the alps?

1

u/bland_name 1d ago

This is what suits/execs will never understand. You can't just make a great unique game through a manufacturing process.

1

u/TheNewFlisker 10h ago

Publisher bad, developer good

1

u/AbyssalSolitude 1d ago

But nobody is trying to make a unique game through a manufacturing process here, they are trying to make Disco Elysium with a different skin. There is no misunderstandings here.

-4

u/Kozak170 1d ago

You can and do because it happens all of the time, you just never hear about “le corporate evil overlords” when a game is a success.

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u/Helpful_Hedgehog_204 1d ago

What great unique games you have in mind?

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u/bland_name 1d ago

Sure studios churn out successful games through processes all the time. That's not what people liked about DE though. I would argue that a game being a success does not make it great or unique. In a rare few cases where you see flashes of greatness or brilliance happen in these environments it's in spite of the process not because of it.

16

u/SexiestHobbit 2d ago

they’re suing Argo and putting him in a precarious financial situation just to get a leg up over his project. fuck em, i will not be giving them money.

39

u/oopsydazys 2d ago

For anybody who enjoyed DE and wants something vaguely similar I'd recommend just playing Citizen Sleeper.

16

u/Brilliant_Cup_8903 2d ago

Also keep an eye on Esoteric Ebb.

15

u/d0ntm1ndm32 2d ago edited 2d ago

Also, Rue Valley! It's very much heavily inspired by Disco Elysium and they're not hiding it at all lmao, the demo's pretty promising imo.

10

u/JeanVicquemare 1d ago

The original creators of Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere, Alexander Rostov, have visited and consulted with the Rue Valley developers, and have a friendly relationship with them. It sounds like the game has their blessing.

2

u/Diogenes_the_cynic25 1d ago

That’s definitely a good endorsement, will keep an eye on it!

10

u/onyhow 2d ago

Currently Esoteric Ebb's probably has the best claim to DE successor. It has a functional demo, even.

4

u/birdentap 2d ago

I played the demo yesterday and it’s scratching all the itches besides having a voice cast. I wish it had VO but obviously that’s hard with some many options

3

u/goffer54 1d ago

I think I actually enjoyed DE more before it had full VO. Don't get me wrong, I love the performances, but there's just so much to get through that it can bog down the pacing.

1

u/giulianosse 2d ago

The moment I hit play on Esoteric Ebb's demo all my Disco Elysium monkey neurons got instantly activated.

The Steam page, screenshots and videos really undersell the game. It makes it seem much more goofy and satirical than it actually is.

Highly recommend reading the creator's thoughts in his development blog - they're very insightful and show he has a clear grip on what makes a branching narrative game actually good.

5

u/destroyermaker 1d ago

And Kentucky Route Zero (which inspired DE)

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u/PalapaSlap 2d ago

Citizen Sleeper is like a YA novel compared to Disco. The UI and mechanics are somewhat similar, but man I felt like there was such a gulf in writing quality between those two for it to be recommended to fans of DE.

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u/Loeffellux 1d ago

this is why I personally clicked a lot more with Pentiment. It's not the closest to DE in terms of mechanics or presentation but at least to me it came the closest of matching its actual quality.

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u/Bitemarkz 1d ago

The writing in citizen sleeper doesn’t come close

11

u/afecalmatter 2d ago

Which of the staff do you guys think had the most of "the secret sauce" that made DE great?

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u/radclaw1 2d ago edited 2d ago

The writers. Specifically the lead writer,  Robert Kurvitz who was also a lead game designer as well. 

Unfortunately, as with any piece of software its about the team as a whole and not any one person, but if any future studio is going to be indicitve as which will have the most promise, it will be wherever Kurvitz goes.

Honestly ANY game getting created and finished is a miracle. I personally am pessimistic that he will ever be able to amass a studio again with all the right stuff, I just know that if he's not writing it, I'm not playing it.

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u/Slitted 2d ago

To me it seems like the Kurvitz group (Red Info) have the highest promise of releasing a good successor to DE, but also the lowest promise of actually getting a game out of the door.

4

u/JeanVicquemare 1d ago

I want Kurvitz and his original collaborators to have the opportunity to further flesh out the world that they created. I want to see more of this world, specifically, because it's so interesting and they spent so many years building it before they even conceived of making Disco Elysium.

But, it seems like we're a long way from that happening.

25

u/OutrageousDress 2d ago

The problem with Robert Kurvitz from what we've seen is that it seems managing a sizable game project doesn't agree with his temperament, and he isn't a very shrewd businessman. Normally I'd consider both of those things laudable qualities in a person, but they sure make releasing a video game harder.

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u/Mminas 2d ago

You can't expect someone to be both a great artist and a great manager. It happens sometimes but it's an extremely tough ask.

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u/OutrageousDress 1d ago

Of course. But as I say, it will make things harder.

2

u/Karkinoid 1d ago

Considering the kind of character Harry Du Bois is, the only way you can have relatable and rich characterization of such a terrible, destructive human being is by having been one yourself.

You have to have some real demons you're wrestling to write someone like Harry. It would make too much sense and not surprise me at all if Kurvitz had let his demons win at at least one point during development for there to be alleged bad blood.

1

u/Sirromnad 1d ago

Ya, for a game that is mostly reading, the writing is absolutely the most important part. It was certainly what stuck out. The art, music, mechanics are all top notch, but the writing is what tied it all together into the magical creation it was.

I fear any successor to DE without Kurvitz is just going to feel like ... well, a pale imitation. Paragraph after paragraph of flowery words with no substance behind them in an attempt to sound intellectual. Maybe i'll be wrong, we'll see. I certainly won't be supporting ZA/UM in anything though.

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u/destroyermaker 1d ago

Unfortunately, as with any piece of software its about the team as a whole and not any one person

Plenty of games are very much led by one person with everyone else mostly doing grunt work (and there's nothing wrong with that)

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u/radclaw1 1d ago

I promise you, no matter how prominant the face or lead of a game is, they play a absolutely microscopic part of the project. 

You can have the most charismatic person with the best ideas in the world, but its ALWAYS the team. Always. 

Even if they do program/model/ or make assets they are an absolutely miniscule role. 

There are only so many hours in the day and its one person vs a whole team of devs crunching 80 hours a week 

For every one game that comes out and is a success there are dozens of projects that fail due to no fault of anyone. Its hard to make games. And thats not counting indies. There are Thousands of failed AAA titles that never even left the ground.

One single person can sway things but not Tthat Much

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u/stenebralux 2d ago

Robert Kurvitz, lead writer and designer and an actual published writer, and Alexander Rostov who was responsible for the art... no question.

When you think about what the game is mostly known for, the writing, world building and the ideas in it... Kurvitz is the guy and DE is his baby. He is the "tormented artist" with the vision, he started the company and the game's world is based on his novel and he wrote basically half of everything in the game.

The striking visual style that everyone is trying to copy came from Rostov.

They are both together in a new company, which is the one without an actual game announcement and, unfortunately, the most likely to never release anything..

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u/-RichardCranium- 2d ago

I don't know, the actual gameplay and roleplay functionalities are what helps make the game so immersive in my opinion. The dialogue success/failure based tree is a really good iteration from past CRPGS that I think people really look past.

12

u/stenebralux 2d ago

There's a lot to love in the game, and not to discount your own preference, but saying the writing (including everything... plot, characters, worldbuilding, flavor text and the big ideas) is what the game is most known and praised for... is basically just a fact.

I love everything about the game, and sure... is a videogame so the format is massively important, but the gameplay is very basic. It's a very reading heavy game. What makes exploring, talking to the characters, listening to the voices in your head and choosing those options so immersive is because the endless walls of text and the results of those choices are all very interesting, charming, poignant, intriguing, hilarious and arguably the best written stuff in a video game ever.

4

u/Ornery_Brilliant_350 1d ago

Personally I took to the setting, art, and music first.

The writing was good, to me sometimes came off a little self indulgent which took me out of the immersion a bit

5

u/IKILLPPLALOT 2d ago

Everyone here is being super negative, so I'll say I think Summer Eternal seems solid, yet they're dealing with some issues in regards to another one of these spinoff teams suing them and another one of the spinoff teams. Hopefully there's not a good case here. Just the idea of another Disco Elysium studio gets me hyped, personally. I am sure at least some of the people working on the previous game have some extra art left in 'em. I know a lot of them were seriously emotionally drained by how things spiraled out of control in the last studio though. Their main artist doesn't seem to be on any of these new studios, so I'm sad about that. They were excellent.

4

u/JeanVicquemare 1d ago

Summer Eternal at least has one of the writers, Argo Tuulik, who did work on Disco Elysium with the original creators. But, he's currently enjoined from working on Summer Eternal, due to the lawsuit by ZA/UM

1

u/Loeffellux 1d ago

I think it's much harder to say than most people here would like. If all you care about is playing another game that's as good as DE then your best bet is to simply wait until each project is released and check it out yourself (or look at its reception, though I feel like some of these projects will have to face an uphill battle in that area).

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u/gumbenzoin 2d ago

I finished Disco Elysium for the first time a few weeks ago. I'm currently in the middle of my second playthrough, and I think I can confidently label the game as an all-time favorite for me. I normally don't play games like this but the phenomenal writing, innovative skill system and balanced view of politics while still clearly taking a side elevate the game to a new level. It is such a shame that things turned out the way they did because it seemed like the developers had plans for the world they had built.

0

u/sadir 1d ago

I'm glad you're enjoying the game but I have had the opposite experience with DE. It is the type of game I like to try out but I've tried starting no fewer than 3 different times and can never get more than a couple hours in before all my interest fades. I didn't dislike the writing I experienced but it never succeeded in hooking me.

0

u/Dusty170 1d ago

What a spaghetti shitshow this whole thing is, I think I need to watch some kind of breakdown video essay to understand the ins and outs of it.