More former ZA/UM employees have started their own construction company, this week under the name Summer Time.
The studio was based around Argo Tuulik, who was credited as one of the main writers on Disco Elysium and co-created the worldbuilding for its setting when the ZA/UM collective was a group of friends working on their own gaming sessions. table role. in the early 2000s.
Tuulik was one of ZA/UM’s most laid-off workers in February, when the company had arguably prohibited a spinoff of Disco Elysium.
IGN reported that the Summer Everlasting group also includes Disco Elysium co-writer Argo Tuulik, voice actor Lenval Brown, senior editor Dora Klindžić, senior concept artist Anastasia Ivanova, realist tailor Michael Oswell, and Aleksandar Gavrilović. who in the past was general director of the Croatian studio Gamechuck.
According to the company’s website, it will be based exclusively in the Croatian capital of Zagreb from April 2025.
Speaking to IGN, Tuulik described Summer Everlasting as a “worker-owned cooperative” with ambitions to become a “revolutionary RPG studio.” On the other hand, he emphasized that the studio’s first project is “definitely not a Disco Elysium studio,” although it will be a narrative RPG.
Summer Everlasting’s announcement follows Friday’s unveiling of games Longdue and Black Math, either of which will be based in the UK and feature former ZA/UM employees.
Together with them, the leftover operations of ZA/UM and two of Disco Elysium’s leaders, Robert Kurvits and Aleksander Rostov, formed their own studio, Crimson Data Ltd, in June 2022 with the backing of NetEase.
That makes a total of five studios (so far) staffed by former Disco Elysium developers after criminal disputes between ZA/UM and the game’s key creators.
In October 2022, Kurvitz, Rostov and Helen Hindpere were reported to have “involuntarily” left the company, with Kurvitz and Rostov accusing ZA/UM of wrongful dismissal.
There have also been accusations that ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus has misappropriated €4.8 million in corporate finances to illegally acquire a majority stake in the studio. This prompted Disco Elysium executive producer Kaur Kender (who is linked to Black Math Games) to file a lawsuit against the company.
The lawsuit was dropped not until a year later, and the felony dispute was settled in March 2023, when Kender chickened out and was ordered in court to pay Kompus’ felony charges.
To learn more about fighting serious crimes in Disco Elysium, you should definitely check out the in-depth investigation through Crowd Form Games.
