The battle to steal the Disco Elysium successor's spotlight continues as former and current ZA/UM devs reveal teasers for their new RPGs simultaneously

Official art for Hopetown, featuring a group of miners looking towards the camera. — (Image credit: Longdue Games)

The battle to steal the Disco Elysium successor's spotlight continues, as the original RPG's studio ZA/UM and a new indie studio featuring former developers from ZA/UM, Rockstar, and more have revealed details about their new games at the exact same time.

Last October, the aforementioned new indie studio Longdue revealed it was working on a psychological RPG billed as a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium. This RPG was later revealed to be called Hopetown, but on the very same day as that initial announcement was made, another new studio (called Dark Math Games), also composed of different former ZA/UM devs, revealed its own spiritual successor called XXX Nightshift. The timing was truly bizarre, but hey, it was a pretty great day for any fans of the award-winning 2019 RPG.

Now, if you can believe it, a very similar situation has surfaced exactly five months on. This time, Longdue is back with a teaser trailer for Hopetown, and while it leaves more questions than answers about the plot, we very excitingly hear the voice of Disco Elysium narrator Lenval Brown, who the trailer confirms is now involved with voice acting, character, and narrative at the studio. You can take a look below.

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But wait, there's more. This time, Longdue isn't competing with another studio formed by devs who once worked at ZA/UM, but ZA/UM itself. The Disco Elysium studio has now unveiled Project C4 – an all-new espionage RPG which "blends player introspection, deep character-driven dialogue, and high-stakes encounters steered by dice rolls." Players will step into the shoes of an Operant, "locked in a vicious, clandestine struggle for truth and influence."

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Unlike Hopetown, C4 hasn't been explicitly advertised as a Disco Elysium spiritual successor, but obviously, with it coming from the same original studio with some former Disco Elysium devs still on the team, and the fact that it fits into the RPG space, the comparison is inevitable. At the time of writing, it's not been revealed when either game is going to be released, but Hopetown's Kickstarter campaign will begin on March 17.

While you're here, be sure to check out our roundup of the best RPGs you can play now.

I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.