This comes from a recent Medium post from Martin Luiga, co-founder and secretary of the ZA/UM cultural association. As a note: the post has announced that the ZA/UM cultural association has been dissolved. This association was an art collective, and was not directly responsible for development of the game, as ZA/UM the company still exists. In the post, Luiga also revealed that ZA/UM Studio founder and Disco Elysium designer Robert Kurvitz, writer Helen Hindpere, and art director Aleksander Rostov haven’t been at the company “since the end of last year.” Rostov later confirmed the news on his personal Twitter account writing, “We confirm that we are no longer at the studio,” on behalf of himself, Kurvitz, and Hindpere. Luiga noted in the post that the “their leaving the company was involuntary,” though didn’t elaborate much in the post about why this took place. A comment from Luiga on his Medium post, who also served as an editor on Disco Elysium, somewhat implied that the three team members’ departure was the fault of investors, and made a similar implication on Twitter too. In a statement provided to Eurogamer, a Studio ZA/UM spokesperson provided a statement on the situation saying, “Like any video game, the development of Disco Elysium was and still is a collective effort, with every team member’s contribution essential and valued as part of a greater whole. “At this time, we have no further comment to make other than the ZA/UM creative team’s focus remains on the development of our next project, and we are excited to share more news on this with you all soon.” It sounds like a sequel to Disco Elysium was in development too, though it’s unclear how far along into development it might be. ZA/UM has recently been hiring, but it’s also unclear if this is related to the departures.
