New details are emerging about the slow and painful death of the sequel to RPG masterpiece Disco Elysium, one of which we now learn would be “the most hardcore disco since Disco.”
In a wide-ranging and often heartbreaking interview with PC Gamer, current and former ZA/UM Studio employees described the creative vision and internally well-received demo for Disco Elysium’s now-cancelled standalone expansion, codenamed X7, the executive decision-making that allegedly led to his death, the layoffs that affected most of his development team, and the fallout from it all. The entire description is worth your time, but what struck me the most was how former X7 head writer Dora Klindzic described the canceled project, which would have been spearheaded by Disco Elysium writer Argo Tuulik.
“It was something no one else but Argo could do and it was going to be 110% authentic, the most hardcore disco after disco,” Klindzic said, adding that X7 “were going to develop the story, the emotional threads and the gameplay elements – all at once to truly develop the psychological RPG genre, as Disco Elysium had begun… For a while, it seemed that miracles were possible, and with them, redemption.”
PC Gamer’s sources say the X7 began development in 2022 and was likely ready for release in 2024 or 2025. An internal demo was passed on to other teams at ZA/UM, most of whom were impressed by what they saw. “Everyone was looking forward to its development,” said one ZA/UM developer. “His internal message was very uplifting after a heavy period of bad press around the studio.”
ZA/UM developers also feel that X7 is “just that kind of game [the studio] should release,” thinking at the time that he could “reassure fans that ZA/UM is not a hoax, that the IP is in safe hands, and that the studio is full of talented people with a genuine love for the world of Revachol.”
Ultimately, management canceled the project and let go of most of the development team in February despite clear assurances from ZA/UM president Ed Tomaszewski in December 2023 that the studio’s strong finances would protect them from the ongoing industry layoff crisis .
Despite receiving universal acclaim in 2019, Disco Elysium has been shrouded in a cloud of controversy that appears to stem from the inner workings of ZA/UM’s executive level. After a bitter split between key ad creatives in 2022, the fired developers of Disco Elysium traded heated criticism with the studio, with the former accusing fraud and the latter toxic management. The story got even more muddled with the release of a comprehensive 2023 documentary by People Make Games that delves deep into the company’s complicated financial and legal situation.
PC Gamer’s story doesn’t reveal a single compelling reason for X7’s cancellation and the studio’s layoffs, even from the perspective of the employees interviewed, but hierarchical ambiguity appears to be one contributing element. Klindzic and Tuulik put the project together and nominally served as development leaders, but neither was ever officially handed the reins.
Additionally, every developer PC Gamer spoke to who worked on X7 attests that the project was never allowed a proper pre-production period, an unprecedented hurdle that Klindzic says was tantamount to dooming the project from the start: “ Whenever we expressed concern about this and expressed that we needed more writers if we were to meet the deadlines, we were accused of not wanting to do our jobs.”
The full truth about why we’ll never play X7, or the full sequel codenamed Y12, or the sci-fi game P1 helmed by Disco Elysium producer Kaur Kender, may never fully come out. This latest splash of color probably won’t do much to soothe fans forever wondering what could have been, because what could have been sounds pretty awesome.
There’s a good reason Disco Elysium made our list of the best role playing games ever made.
