Article / News

Key Members of Disco Elysium Studio ZA/UM Have Left

Disco Elysium Artwork of city

One of the founding members of ZA/UM and editor on Disco Elysium, Martin Luiga, has revealed that he has decided to dissolve the ZA/UM “cultural association” because it stopped conforming to its founding ethos.

Luiga also revealed that many of the key developers who worked on Disco Elysium, including Robert Kurvitz (lead designer, writer), Helen Hindpere (lead writer), and Aleksander Rostov (art director) were no longer working at ZA/UM after leaving “involuntarily” last year.

Here is Martin Luiga’s full statement:

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 (not to be confused with the ZA/UM company, on which subject I would note that neither Kurvitz, Hindpere nor Rostov are working there since the end of last year and their leaving the company was involuntary. Which would seem like bad news for the loving fans that are waiting for the Disco sequel.)

The reason for dissolving the cultural organization is that it no longer represents the ethos it was founded on.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. I find that the organization was successful overall and most of the mistakes that were made were contingent, determined by the sociocultural conditions we were thrown into. I still encourage people to organize, and I would say that one of the qualities that the ZA/UM cultural organization sorely lacked was pretty much any formal structure.

For a while, it was beautiful. My sincerest thanks to all that have rooted for us.

Responding to comments on his original post, Luiga seemed to indicate that investors in ZA/UM were to blame for a shift in the studio’s character, which ultimately led to the departure of some of Disco Elysium‘s key developers.

He also commented on the sequel to Disco Elysium.

I think that things with the sequel are actually sweet enough, you might even get it the way it was meant, it might take a shit ton of time but RPG fans are sorta accustomed to waiting, ain’t they.

Well, only time will tell whether or not the sequel does turn out how Luiga and the rest of the original team envisioned it. Regardless, it’s heartbreaking to see some of the people who put so much love and hard work into Disco Elysium be forced to leave the team they made it with. I’m sure I speak for all the staff here at RPGFan as I wish them the best of luck with their future endeavors!

Source: PC Gamer

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Tom Cox

Tom Cox

Tom is a News and Social Media Editor at RPGFan, with a love for Pokémon and One Piece. When he's not playing RPGs, he can also be found running, reading manga and watching anime.

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