It’s finally official: ZA/UM, the studio behind Disco Elysium, is done. What’s left is a company in name only – one that no longer includes the minds or heart behind the game that redefined narrative RPGs for an entire generation. For us here at GamesHub, that’s tough to write.
We don’t say this lightly – Disco Elysium is a landmark. A game that hit like a philosophical sledgehammer, yet somehow made space for tenderness, humour, and wild imagination. We’ve written about it, recommended it, obsessed over it. And now, the studio that made it possible has fully collapsed.
This week, it was confirmed that there are no sequels in development, no expansions, and no meaningful creative staff left at ZA/UM. The remaining structure will reportedly move away from traditional game development altogether. For fans holding onto hope for a return to Revachol, it’s time to let go.
And yeah, that stings. Because what ZA/UM built wasn’t just a game – it was a movement. Something rare. Something sharp. Something deeply human. Watching it unravel, step by step, has been a brutal thing to witness.
The Soul of ZA/UM Has Left the Building
This week’s final update confirmed what we already suspected: the core creative team is long gone. Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere, Aleksander Rostov – they’re all out, with court cases settled or buried under NDAs. There’s no more fight left in the building, because there’s nobody left to fight for what it once stood for.
We’ve followed this story closely from the beginning. The bitter legal battles. The hostile restructuring. The slow, painful drift toward silence. It always felt like a loss in progress. Now it’s done.
The current leadership at ZA/UM might still own the name, but the spark that created Disco Elysium – that fiercely weird, deeply literary, politically loaded spark – is gone. What’s left is a hollow vessel. A logo.
No Sequel, No Future Plans – Just Silence
Let’s be clear: there’s no Disco Elysium 2. No prequel. No expansion. The few internal experiments that were teased post-release? They never made it out of concept. The devs who could have pulled it off were already gone.
And even if someone tried to pick up the IP now, it wouldn’t be the same. Not without the people who lived inside that world and knew its broken streets and philosophies intimately. A sequel made by strangers wouldn’t be a continuation – it’d be an imitation.
We’ve seen enough failed revivals to know when to walk away. This is one of those times.
Losing Something That Can’t Be Replaced
Disco Elysium wasn’t just good – it was bold. It was uncompromising. It took swings most games wouldn’t dare and made those swings land. It understood failure, doubt, politics, and grief in a way that hit us square in the chest. It respected your intelligence. It trusted you to wander, to mess up, to question.
There’s a hole now – one that no other studio seems ready to fill. Games are getting slicker, but not weirder. Safer, but not smarter. Disco Elysium was never safe. It was chaotic, beautiful, broken – and that’s what made it unforgettable.
We don’t expect another game like it anytime soon. Maybe ever.
What Comes Next?
There’s one small glimmer of hope. Kurvitz and the original crew have hinted that something new is in the works. Not a sequel, but something in the same spirit. That’s enough for us to keep watching.
The studio also also revealed their next game, ‘Project C4’, earlier this year, which is being described as a “mind-warping espionage RPG.”
We’ll keep following whatever comes next, and we’ll keep remembering what Disco Elysium meant – to us, to players, and to the shape of modern narrative games in particular.
ZA/UM is gone. But the impact it left behind? That’s still very much alive.
