Spiritual Successor To Disco Elysium

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Part of a series on Disco Elysium. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Spiritual Successor To Disco Elysium refers to memes and jokes about how three groups of former Disco Elysium developers announced three separate projects, leading fans of the RPG video game to share jokes about which game would be the "real" spiritual successor to Disco Elysium. The news came after years of internal turmoil in ZA/UM, which the original creators of the game, writer Robert Kurvitz and oil painter Aleksander Rostov, were supposedly ousted from after a hostile takeover of the company. Neither Kurvitz nor Rostov appear to be involved in any of the three projects.

History

On October 11th, 2024, three game developers formerly involved with Disco Elysium announced upcoming projects inspired by the 2019 RPG video game.

The first trailer for XXX Nightshift, created by the studio Dark Math Games,^[1] was released on October 11th. The game is described as a "true detective RPG" set in a luxury ski resort in Antarctica. Kaur Kender, one of the original investors in Disco Elysiums, is listed as a resigned director at Dark Math Games, which is helmed by his brother Heiti Kender.

On October 11th, studio Londue Games announced a game IGN^[2] and PCGamer^[3] described as a "spiritual successor to Disco Elysium." The studio described the untitled game as a "new psychological RPG… set in a game world conceived by the leads of the now-canceled Disco Elysium sequel." The studio released a piece of concept art for the upcoming game (shown below).

Also on October 11th, 2024, the game studio Summer Eternal^[4] announced its plans to develop "a cultural megaproject, an RPG with complexity and ambition worthy to rival our wretched and wonderful world." The studio is helmed by former Disco Elysium writers Argo Tuulik and Olga Moskvin and is staffed with several of the ZA/UM's former developers.

None of the aforementioned projects claim the involvement of Disco Elysium writer Robert Kurvitz or oil painter Aleksander Rostov.

Online Reactions

In mid-October 2024, several internet users posted jokes about how three separate game studios appear to be vying to be called the real "spiritual successor" of Disco Elysium, with X^[5] user @Hatrcantread posting a map of the fragmented Mongol Empire on October 11th, writing, "'My dev studio is the RIGHTFUL successor to Disco Elysium.'"

Also on October 11th, X^[6] user @ckunzelman posted a joke about making "a disco elysium spiritual successor," despite being "unaffiliated with any of the former developers," and never having played the game. The user later posted a humorous example of what such a game would look like, gathering over 6,000 likes in a day.

On October 11th, 2024, X^[7] user @cavegift joked, "bro last night was a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium," gathering over 7,000 likes in a day.