An Estonian development studio with offices in London, Brighton and Porto. The team burst onto the scene with the critically acclaimed RPG Disco Elysium, released on PC and consoles.
History of ZA/UM
Difficult beginnings
ZA/UM was officially founded in 2016, by an Estonian writer and musician Robert Kurvitz. In practice, however, the team got started well before then.
Kurvitz has been a member of the band Ultramelanhool since 2001. Inspired by Tiësto’s Adagio for Strings in 2005, he imagined building a whole fictional universe. His bandmates embraced the idea, and gradually, other artists and musicians, including painter Alexander Rostov, came on board. Together, they built a collective aimed at bringing this still-unnamed world to life.
Initially, they aimed to create a tabletop RPG using the Dungeons & Dragons system. Eventually, Estonian writer Kaur Kender joined the project, helping Kurvitz craft a novel set in his invented universe. Sacred and Terrible Air came out in 2013 but barely made a splash, finding only about a thousand readers.
A new start
Three years on, Kender encouraged Kurvitz to dive into video game development. Although he had no experience as a developer, Rostov’s encouragement convinced him to take the leap. Their game was envisioned as a mash-up of Dungeons & Dragons and a 1970s cop show, set in a ‘fantasy-realistic’ universe with swords, guns, and cars. The game aimed to build on the legacy of RPG classics like Planescape: Torment and Baldur’s Gate.
Shortly after, the studio officially announced No Truce With the Furies. They borrowed the working title from an RS Thomas book. The studio’s name, ZA/UM, references a language created by Russian avant-garde poets in the early 20th century.
At first, the core team ran the project out of Tallinn, setting up shop in a former gallery. Eventually, some team members moved to England, while developers from Poland, Romania, and China came on board. Kurvitz got help from eight writers on the dialogue, and British Sea Power provided the game’s music. The project was funded by an Estonian businessman - Margus Linnamäe.
During development, the game expanded significantly, which delayed its original 2017 release. They eventually settled on a new name: Disco Elysium. The new title reflected the journey of rediscovering the world through the amnesiac protagonist (from Latin disco – ‘I’m learning’)
Great success
Disco Elysium finally launched on October 15, 2019. The studio ultimately chose to self-publish the game. It was a financial hit - one of Steam’s biggest releases in October - and a spectacular artistic success. The acclaim comes more from industry critics than Steam users, with an average Metacritic score of 91%. At The Game Awards 2019, the game won Best Story, Best RPG, and Best Independent Game, while ZA/UM took home Best Indie Debut.
June 2020 brought news that dj2 Entertainment, behind the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, was working on a TV adaptation of the project. In December 2020, ZA/UM announced Disco Elysium: The Final Cut for PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, promising an expanded storyline with new areas, quests, and characters. The title debuted in March 2021. At the time, Helen Hindpere of ZA/UM, the lead writer of Disco Elysium, confirmed that a sequel was all but certain. In October 2021, Disco Elysium: The Final Cut arrived on Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles.
Black clouds
In early October 2022, it was revealed that the cultural association ZA/UM, from which the studio originated, had been dissolved, and key Disco Elysium developers Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere, and Aleksander Rostov were forced to leave the studio. Interestingly, this was supposed to happen at the end of 2021.
Martin Luiga, co-founder of the association and the game’s editor, said the dismissals were based on false premises. Earlier, Luiga blamed the investors, subtly suggesting he meant executive producers Kaur Kender and Tonis Haavel.
So what became of the Disco Elysium sequel Hindpere had mentioned? Luiga didn’t entirely rule out a sequel. While he initially suggested players "might even get it in the form they expect", he later said that, in his eyes, "ZA/UM in its current form won’t be producing a sequel". As for Disco Elysium’s creators, Luiga felt that all three should "continue making games". After a delay, ZA/UM finally responded, though their statement was rather brief. ZA/UM highlighted that Disco Elysium was a "collective effort", where "every member’s contribution" made up "part of a larger whole". At the same time, the team promised to soon share details about their ‘next project’ with players.
News broke in early November that Kaur Kender had been pushed out of the studio. Robert Kurvitz then decided to sue ZA/UM, aiming to prove that the Disco Elysium brand had been illegally taken from its creators. The situation heated up when Kurvitz and Rostov started revealing their perspective on what went wrong. They claimed the scandal stemmed from fraud by the company’s owners, Ilmar Kompus and Tonis Haavel. Allegedly, they controlled Tütreke OÜ, which acquired a majority stake in ZA/UM from Linnamäe using the company’s own money. The new owner then gradually sidelined the core Disco Elysium creators from the studio’s operations. The developers were fired after requesting access to documents and financial records. So what exactly was the fraud allegedly committed by Kompus and Haavel? This was revealed by Kaur Kender, who, shortly after being dismissed, also decided to sue ZA/UM. He claimed that Tütreke OÜ resorted to a daring scheme to get the money needed for the deal. According to Kender, Tütreke OÜ snapped up concept sketches from ZA/UM for a single euro and flipped them back to the studio for 4.8 million euros. According to reports, Kompus aimed to sell the studio to a major player, but the plan fell apart. Haavel reportedly pulled the strings from behind the scenes, even though he was officially bankrupt.
ZA/UM studio itself subsequently addressed the matter. The company accused the former employees of toxic behavior toward other developers and failing to fulfill their duties. They also accused them of attempting to illegally sell the Disco Elysium brand. As for Kender, he wasn’t officially fired but reportedly placed on sick leave.
In December 2022, events took an unexpected turn: after the €4.8 million was returned to ZA/UM’s account, Kaur Kender decided to withdraw his lawsuit.
This, however, did not mean the end of ZA/UM's problems. In late May 2023, unofficial reports suggested that 100 people were working on Disco Elysium 2. However, in February 2024, news broke that the wave of layoffs hitting the video game industry had also impacted the team. As a result of the layoffs, roughly 25% of ZA/UM’s staff were reportedly let go, including screenwriters Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindzic.
To make matters worse, the enigmatic X7 project - reportedly a standalone expansion for Disco Elysium - was canceled. GLHF reported that the series’ sequel and a new sci-fi project were both canceled as well. From then on, the team reportedly focused on two projects, codenamed C4 and M0.
The Legacy of ZA/UM and Disco Elysium
In October 2024, three new teams made up of former ZA/UM employees emerged in the industry. These included the independent Longdue and the British studio Dark Math Games, both creating "spiritual successors" to Disco Elysium, as well as Summer Eternal, founded by screenwriters Argo Tuulik and Olga Moskvina, along with Dora Klindžic, Anastasia Ivanova, Aleksandar Gavrilovic, and others.
