Edition Sports Illustrated citing its sources, reported that about 24 employees of the Estonian company ZA/UM are under threat of dismissal. This is approximately a quarter of the company’s total staff. And the cancellation of the project under the code name led to layoffs X7. Presumably it was a standalone expansion to Disco Elysium.
As studio head Ilmar Kompus said in a letter to employees, the company’s staff will be restructured to support the two remaining games in development. They still have conventional names C4 and M0and one of these projects is related to Disco Elysium.
According to management, the studio needed one to two years to complete work on X7. It is estimated that it could have taken “more time and effort than Disco Elysium.”
Disco Elysium was released in 2019 and became a sensation and a cult project. However, it was not possible to repeat the success: sources report that over the past years the studio has already managed to cancel the sequel to Disco Elysium and freeze the sci-fi project P1.
One source blamed management who “always acted as if they had an enemy, be it the old Disco crew, the press or even company employees.” We ourselves have repeatedly heard news about the departure of key developers and accusations of toxic behavior by managers.