Summary
The drama behind the ZA/UM split afterDisco Elysiumhas to be one of the biggest falls from grace a studio has seen in a while. After putting out one of the best new RPGs in the industry, ZA/UM split into three different studios,each of which announced their own versions of a Disco Elysium successor.
The original studio has finally thrown its hat into the ring by announcing C4, an espionage thriller RPG, steeped in elements of psychedelic sci-fi. While it’s no Disco Elysium 2, it does sound a lot like it. So, as it stands,all the former Disco Elysium parties and their new studios are working on a successor.
Disco Elysium Studio ZA/UM Announces New RPG Called C4
“As an Operant serving a questionable global power, the player finds themselves locked in a vicious, clandestine struggle for truth and influence,” says the plot summary, “Yet it is the mind that takes centre stage in Project C4. More vulnerable and more powerful than the physical world, it can be erased, changed, reordered, and of course significantly altered through regular use of psychoactive substances amongst other means.”
Writers Siim ‘Kosmos’ Sinamäe and Jim Ashilevi insisted that while there were similar elements, the game is not Disco Elysium 2. “We want to build on what we’ve done before,” explained Sianamäe, “but not simply by repeating it or rehashing it. This is not Disco Elysium 2, this is C4. We’ve spent the last three years developing this brand-new, gripping, completely original work exploring the theme that each and every member of the ZA/UM collective is inherently obsessed with: espionage.”
“What differentiates us from other RPGs out there is failing forward,” added Ashilevi. “Instead of failure being something that makes the player trigger a reload, start save scumming, we make failure a joy in itself, validating the player choice where other games may deny it. This is something very unique to our games, and we all know nobody fails more often than spies.”
The announcement was accompanied by a rather trippy trailer that didn’t reveal much, but stayed true to the psychedelic sci-fi description of C4.
