Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM has announced layoffs impacting up to 32 of its employees after new RPG Zero Parades: For Dead Spies suffered from disappointing sales. Disco Elysium fans are not surprised.
"Talented passionate workers, evil inept ownership," says one reaction to ZA/UM's announcement on Bluesky. In the years since adored RPG Disco Elysium launched in 2019, ZA/UM has managed to earn several lifetimes' worth of bad karma: it canceled a Disco Elysium sequel in 2022 and other Disco-related projects among the company leadership's downward spiral into finger-pointing, lawsuits, and an apparent hostile takeover from CEO Ilmar Kompus, who studio founder Robert Kurvitz accused of fraud. ZA/UM later underwent mass layoffs in 2024, and many of Disco Elysium's developers no longer work for the company. Instead, they splintered off into several new studios competing with each other in making the perfect Disco spiritual successor.
In spite of all this, Zero Parades is a good game – our three-and-a-half star out of five Zero Parades review at least found it capable of "some of the old charm" – and ZA/UM proudly references its "critical acclaim" in its July 17 layoff announcement.
Nonetheless, Zero Parade's "commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size," the developer says. "We have served redundancy or at-risk notices impacting up to 32 of our colleagues across all departments at ZA/UM Studio. Their work has made a lasting difference and left its mark on ZERO PARADES."
ZA/UM mentions it's working with ZA/UM Workers' Alliance representatives, and it pointedly says that layoffs simply twist "the shape of ZA/UM, but not its purpose."
"Our artistic standards remain unchanged: we will persist," the studio concludes. But its earliest fans are capable of the loyalty the studio needs right now, and they seem unconvinced.
Zero Parades being an easier RPG than Disco Elysium makes perfect sense – and makes it more fun.
