Almost 5 years because the recreation launched, Disco Elysium has one thing of a rotten legacy. Some of the acclaimed video games of the trendy period, the ground-breaking RPG was adored by critics and customers alike at launch, lauded for its deep RPG programs, its exemplary writing, and for a way utterly and totally well-conceived its bleak, depressing world was. I additionally actually, actually favored the music.
Tensions between improvement workers and the publishing arm of the corporate, and apparently rancid in-studio vibes, have result in many people pondering that we’ll by no means get one other recreation like Disco Elysium ever once more. Or will we?
Although it’s lacking some key workers that made DE as memorable because it was, new indie developer Longdue has introduced that it’s engaged on one thing very Disco-like – and it even has quite a few workers that labored on the unique on its books (however not, notably, the three ‘primary’ leads: Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov, and Helen Hindpere).
The studio is already ‘a dozen robust’, per a press launch, ‘together with staff members that labored on the unique Disco Elysium and its unreleased sequel’. The staff can also be drawing expertise from throughout the business, together with veterans from Bungie, Rockstar, and Courageous At Evening (who you’ll in all probability know from Sure, Your Grace).
“Longdue’s debut RPG explores the fragile interaction between the aware and unconscious, the seen and unseen,” the press launch states. “Set in a world the place selections ripple between the character’s psyche and setting, gamers will navigate a consistently shifting panorama, formed by each inside and exterior forces.” I don’t learn about you, however that definitely sounds just a little Pale-like to me, no?
For those who beloved what The Thought Cupboard did within the authentic Disco Elysium, you’re in all probability going to like the brand new ‘psychogeographic RPG’ mechanic that Longdue is engaged on, the place each resolution reshapes each the world and the characters that inhabit it. On this expertise, the traces between the thoughts and the setting blur, colliding and reworking with every selection, main gamers by way of an ever-evolving narrative panorama. Color me intrigued.
The press launch definitely says all the fitting issues to get my consideration. It notes that Longdue goals to create video games that “resonate emotionally and intellectually.” It assures us that the studio is right here to “construct a fame for constantly delivering high quality, with a give attention to depth and narrative integrity”. That is, per the messaging, “just the start of Longdue’s journey to turn out to be a trusted identify within the higher RPG canon”.
The studio is funded by by “personal buyers from the tech world”, although, and we noticed how that each one went down with Studio ZA/UM. It seems that people who find themselves so rich that gentle bends round them have the ability to trigger numerous issues for creatives. Who’d have thought it, ey?
However, reservations apart, I’m enthusiastic about this. We simply don’t get numerous video games which are as narratively and mechanically wealthy as Disco Elysium lately – the closest I can consider are in all probability Citizen Sleeper and Pentiment, however neither fairly scratches the identical itch. Disco Elysium, I’m not alone in pondering, was actually one thing particular.
However, good issues are by no means constructed to final, are they? In a story that might have been spun from one of many recreation’s many side-stories, the collapse of the Disco Elysium concept post-release was messy, private, and achingly unhappy. Key figures in that first recreation’s improvement parted methods with developer Studio ZA/UM in 2021 (Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere), and torpedoed a sequel as they exited.
Following that, earlier this 12 months, we discovered that one other spin-off recreation set in the identical universe has been cancelled. And rumours abound that we’ll by no means get a Disco Elysium sequel or spin-off from Studio ZA/UM, ever.
No matter Longdue is engaged on will doubtless be our greatest likelihood at getting one thing even remotely related, then. I’ll be retaining my eye on this one, and updating you every time there’s any information.