Messy drama behind Disco Elysium's multiple spiritual successors detailed in new report
Arguments, legal action, and a USB stick.
A new report detailing the drama behind the three Disco Elysium spiritual successors all simultaneously announced last month has outlined a convoluted web of connections, fallouts, and legal action, suggesting the beloved RPG's legacy remains as messy as ever.
Disco Elysium's original developer ZA/UM was, of course, at legal loggerheads with various former team members for quite some time; but while ZA/UM has said those lawsuits are now resolved, it seems drama has continued to swirl around those involved, even as they move onto other ventures. Those ventures include new projects at Dark Math Games and Longdue, two UK-based studios comprised of former Disco Elysium developers, who both announced Disco Elysium spiritual successors back in October. It also leads us to Argo Tuulik - one of the original writers on Disco Elysium and a key creative on ZA/UM's cancelled Disco Elysium spin-off X7 - who followed up those announcements by revealing he'd also co-founded a new studio, Summer Eternal, with former ZA/UM developer Dora Klindžić.
And now a report by IGN's Wesley Yin-Poole has delved deeper into the tangle of the three new studios, laying out the financial links between the two UK-based teams (Longdue founder Riaz Moola is also an investor in Dark Math Games), and revealing Tuulik and Klindžić both previously worked at Dark Math - as director and narrative director on the recently announced XXX Nightshift - and later at Longdue. It's fascinatingly convoluted stuff.
IGN reports Tuulik and Klindžić both departed Dark Math this July after the company elected not to renew Tuulik's contract due to "creative differences". Tensions are said to have come to a head after Tuulik claimed Dark Math boss Kaur Kender (who was also previously embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with ZA/UM over the ownership fo the Diso Elysium IP) had shown him - and other staff members - naked photos of his ex-wife. Speaking to IGN, Kender disputed the claim, saying the woman - who was to serve as inspiration for characters in XXX Nightshift - was wearing a bikini in some photos, and was fully clothed in others. Dark Math, meanwhile, told IGN it would "not be commenting on the past".
And it only gets more fractious from there. Tuulik and Klindžić are then said to have moved over to Longdue via parent company CoGrammar, with Tuulik working as a consultant on the studio's still unnamed "psychological RPG". However, the two later resigned, leaving at the end of September, ultimately leading to legal action that saw CoGrammar successfully obtain an injunction in England and Wales on the basis of breach of contact - preventing the pair from working on anything at their new studio Summer Eternal until April 2025.
Tuulik called the verdict an "absurdity" in a message sent to IGN, while a statement shared by CoGrammar claimed that prior to its legal action, the company had offered to release Tuulik and Klindžić from contractual restrictions - blocking them from working with other studios within six months after their departure - but the duo declined to sign the release contracts.
And that's still not the end of it. Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, in the midst of all this, is said to have filed a legal notice against Tuulik, alleging breach of contract, breach of confidentiality, and copyright infringement - all related to a USB stick containing a playable, 20-minute build of Disco Elysium follow-up X7 that Tuulik is said to have shown Longdue and Dark Math employees. But it's worth reading IGN's full report for the details on that particular thread.
It is, in other words, all a bit of a mess. And that's without factoring in what Disco Elysium lead writer Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov - who were both fired from ZA/UM in 2022 amid allegations of mismanagement and misconduct - will do next. The pair have set up their own studio, Red Info, to make a game with the backing of Chinese company NetEase. The race is on, then, to see which Disco Elysium spiritual successor gets out the door first.