Rumors of aDisco Elysiumsequel, spinoff, or spiritual successor have been circulating since before the game was even released. The surreal, politically charged detective RPG met with near-universal acclaim at launch, going on to take home no fewer than four trophies at The Game Awards 2019, and three BAFTAs. With itshumble beginnings as a tabletop system,DiscoElysiumrelies on traditional dice rolls to tell its groundbreaking, genre-defying story. It revolves around a dilapidated detective who drinks himself into a stupor so potent that he forgets the very nature of reality, waking up with a festering body and a murder to solve.
Only shortly after its smash-hit success, the developers ofDisco Elysium, an indie studio called ZA/UM, quietly began work on a spinoff. Unfortunately,internal conflict at the studio led to a series of legal troubles, ultimately ending in what may be the total dissolutionof ZA/UM. That doesn’t mean the legacy ofDisco Elysiumis dead, though - although the possibility of a sequel is next to nil, there’s a good chance that there’s more to come from its creators.
Early Rumors & Leaks Of A Disco Elysium 2
Success & Sequels
The first whisper of aDisco Elysium 2actually came from aRock Paper Shotguninterview with its developers, published just twelve days before its release on July 10, 2025. It seemed that,even beforeDisco Elysiumwas out, ZA/UM was toying with ideas for a sequel. Writer Robert Kurvitz was particularly interested in putting players in the shoes of a pregnant protagonist, using the game’s conversational skill system as an interface between mother and child. With the firstDisco Elysium’s musings on identity and the potential for change, this would’ve represented a generational evolution of its themes.
The release was a success, andwhat followed was a whirlwind of lofty announcements: a console port, an expanded Director’s Cut, even an Amazon streaming series. (The first two eventually materialized; the latter didn’t.) For a time, though, there was no further word of a sequel. In 2022,ZA/UM appeared to be hiring developers for a sci-fi game, codenamedP1and led by ZA/UM investor/Disco Elysiumexecutive producer Kaur Kender.
ZA/UM’s Legal Troubles
Disco Elysium’s Studio Falls Apart
That October, however, it was revealed thatDisco Elysiumwriter Robert Kurvitz was involved in a lawsuit filed against ZA/UM. Although details were scarce, the Estonian court filing did reveal that Kurvitz had requested access to unspecified documents.
Shortly thereafter, representatives of ZA/UM announced thatKurvitz, fellow writer Helen Hindpere, and art director Aleksander Rostov had all been fired from the studio the year prio, citing misconduct. It alleged that they had created a toxic work environment, marked with verbal abuse and misogyny. In addition, ZA/UM stakeholder Ilmar Kompus claimed that Kurvitz had attempted to illicitly sell ZA/UM’s intellectual property, but had failed to find a buyer. He claimed thatP1lead Kaur Kender had been responsible for demanding their dismissal, and had gone on leave.
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Rostov and Kurvitz later penned a post onMedium, in whichthey claimed that ZA/UM had been fraudulently sold to a company called Tütreke OÜwith Kender’s aid. While these claims were never substantiated, it soon became clear that entertainment tycoon Margus Linnamäe had sold his shares in ZA/UM to two new stakeholders, Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel, the former of whom is registered as a beneficiary of Tütreke OÜ.
Kender was next to file a lawsuit against Kompus and Haavel, this time for damages in the amount of €913,000(roughly $991,883 USD). Kender claimed he and several other developers had been entitled to part of what they had paid Linnamäe for his share of the company, but that Linnamäe had gone over their heads. Kurvitz, Rostov, and Kender later withdrew their respective lawsuits in 2023. Kurvitz and Rostov cited a lack of evidence, while Kender admitted his own suit had been “misguided.” It was revealed in 2023 that Kender had also been let go from ZA/UM after an extended period of leave.
What’s Left Of ZA/UM?
Is Disco Elysium 2 Canceled?
Then, in February 2024,an article inSports Illustratedbroke the news that ZA/UM was on its last legs, facing sweeping layoffs and the cancelation of a mystery project codenamedX7. This was said to be a standalone expansion forDisco Elysium, featuring writer Argo Tuulik, the last writer of the originalgame still employed at ZA/UM. Tuulik spoke withSports Illustratedin a separate article the very next day, saying:
“[ZA/UM] will forever stay a one-game studio. The individuals of ZA/UM, the cultural movement, have left the corporate body behind like the King Cobra slithering out of its dead skin. Remember, we promised: Un jour je serai de retour près de toi [one day I’ll return to your side]. "
That’s shockingly final, but it’s worth noting thatthere’s never been any official confirmation that ZA/UM has shut down completely. A representative from ZA/UM responded to Tuulik’s statement, saying only, “As with all studios, we adapt the size of our team to the work underway, growing when we start a new project and shrinking if one is cancelled. It is always hard to lose talented colleagues, and we thank those leaving for their many contributions to ZA/UM.”
The officialZA/UMX (formerly Twitter) account is still active as of October 2024, as is its website, which still has several job listings posted, including one posted as recently as October 10. There could indeed still be projects in development at ZA/UM, butit seems unlikely.
And even if there are,there’s no way of telling what those look like, or whether they have anything to do withDisco Elysium. It’s not necessarily ethical, or even desirable, for a studio to can all the developers responsible for a successful game, then produce a sequel with a whole new team - but it’s not exactly unheard of, either.
There’s No Disco Elysium 2 Without Its Original Writers
Disco Elysium advanced video games as a legitimate storytelling medium, and it did so with the strength of its writing. ZA/UM has lost key talent.
One Day, Three Successors
Details Of Disco Elysium’s Three Spiritual Sequels
Then, on the morning of October 11,a new development studio named Longdue announced its existence in a press release, claiming to be developing a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium. It promised a “psychogeographic” RPG, which seems to imply an intersection between the player characters' inner dialogues and the world around them.
Longdue claims that creatives from the originalDisco Elysiumand its canceled sequel (presumablyX7) are somehow involved, but none have come forward at the time of writing. It is known thatneither Kurvitz nor Rostov are involved in any of the three (yes, three)Disco Elysiumsuccessors announced on October 11.
Later that day, another studio came out of the woodwork: Dark Math Games. With a teaser trailer, it claimed to have been founded by former ZA/UM devs, and to be working on a game calledXXX Nightshift. Described as a “true detective” RPG - a phraseDisco Elysiumalso used in much of its marketing -XXX Nightshiftstars Patrol Operative Dinorah Katz as one of many people stranded at a ski resort in Antarctica, in the near future of 2086.
The three-minute teaser for the game, posted on YouTube the same day, showsa dialogue window strikingly similar toDisco Elysium’s, complete with dice, and a system by which certain dialogue options are divided into red, green, and blue. Katz’s alignment with these three colors may affect the results of her skill checks, as the “dice roll” graphic uses thos same three colors. Ample talk of chinchilla-fur blankets seems to imply a setting replete with luxury, which will likely be contrasted by gruesome crimes as the story unfolds.
Finally, on the same day,a third studio, founded in part by Tuulik, appeared on the scene. In an extensive manifesto posted on its website,Summer Eternalannounced that it intends to release a similarly genre-breaking game, but without all the drama. It has yet to announce any concrete plans, but claims it’ll be launching a crowdfunding campaign in the coming days. Kurvitz and Rostov also appear to have founded their own studio, Red Info, Ltd., but nothing appears to have come out of it just yet.
It’s difficult to see the studio stripped for parts after such a wild and beloved success, but the lawsuits' withdrawal means that fans will probably never know exactly what happened internally before theDEteam’s dissolution. But while the future of ZA/UM is shaky at best, at least three studios have risen out of its ashes, and claim to have projects in the works. There may never be a secondDisco Elysiumgame, but it’s clear that the first has left its indelible mark on the industry, and will continue spawning imitators for a long time to come.
Sources:Rock Paper Shotgun,Sports Illustrated(1),Medium,Sports Illustrated(2),ZA/UM/X,XXX Nightshift/YouTube,Summer Eternal
Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium is an open-world RPG that places a heavy emphasis on dialog and player choice. Players control Harrier “Harry” Du Bois, an amnesiac detective trying to piece together the shattered remnants of his past. The game received widespread praise from both players and critics alike, with many reviewers commenting on the quality of the game’s writing. The Final Cut version of Disco Elysium is one of the highest-rated video games on Metacritic with a MetaScore of 97.
