Rumor: Disco Elysium Studio About To Be Cut By 1/4th, Another Game Cancelled
ZA/UM, the studio famous for making Disco Elysium, is reportedly going through some rough restructuring of their own.
As reported by VideoGames.SI, the company is looking at cancelling at the project codenamed X7, and is laying off 24 employees. That amounts to roughly 1/4th of all employees at the studio.
ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus shared this message as part of an internal email with employees:
“Despite concerted efforts over the past eight months by our management team and the X7 disciplines, following consultation with our management team, I have taken the difficult decision to cancel X7. This decision, unlike the pause on Project P1, will unfortunately most likely lead to redundancies within our studio.
With the cancellation of X7 we are proposing to reshape our team to support our two remaining games. This adjustment will almost certainly lead to redundancies, mostly affecting the X7 team but also our non-development teams and non-X7 projects.”
ZA/UM president Ed Tomaszewski told staff in an internal email that X7 “was a game that was one to two years away from completion.” Ed also asserted it would have required “more time and effort than Disco Elysium did.”
Sources within the company blame mismanagement and point to alleged gender discrimination. But at this point we have to discuss the big elephant in the room.
Two years ago, ZA/UM underwent immense internal turmoil, when Robert Kurvitz, ZA/UM’s co-founder and lead designer, went to war with the board and management of ZA/UM. Initial coverage seemed to indicate bad practices by management, such as forcing Kurvitz and other ZA/UM employees to leave the organization involuntarily.
However, reports from YouTube channel People Make Games, as well as independent investigation by Estonian journalists, revealed a muddled picture, as Kurvitz, alongside Kurvitz’ friends like art director Alexander Rostov, and writer Helen Hindpere, were accused of creating a toxic work environment, as well as workplace misconduct, and
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