Two new studios comprising former ZA/UM devs emerge, both focused on Disco Elysium-esque RPGs
Two new game development studios have just emerged. They have one thing in common: core members of their teams previously worked at Disco Elysium maker ZA/UM.
XXX Nightshift (left), concept art for Longdue Games’ debut RPG (right)
Dark Math Games
- Founded in 2023, Dark Math Games is a London-based studio that employs 20 people. Half of them worked on Disco Elysium.
- The team is now working on its debut project, a detective RPG called XXX Nightshift. The game already has a Steam page, and it is remarkably similar to ZA/UM’s breakthrough title, from the camera angle to its dialogue box.
- As IGN spotted, one of Dark Math directors is Kaur Kender, an Estonian writer who helped publish Robert Kurvitz’s novel Sacred and Terrible Air and was one of ZA/UM’s first investors. The studio’s founding team also includes art director Timo Albert, a former motion graphic designer at ZA/UM.
- “Additionally to innovating the traditional RPG mechanics, we’ll bring something fresh to the table,” Albert said in a statement.
Longdue Games
- Also based in London, Longdue Games consists of 12 developers, including the leads of the now-canceled Disco Elysium sequel and former Bungie, Rockstar, and Brave At Night employees.
- One of them is narrative director Grant Roberts, who has been in the industry for over 20 years. His experience includes various positions at companies such as Legend Entertainment, Sierra Online, Bungie, Rocksteady, Splash Damage, and Sweet Baby Inc.
- Longdue also raised an undisclosed amount of funding to develop its debut game.
- The team is working on a narrative-driven psychological CRPG. “We’re building on the legacy of foundational story-driven RPGs and joining the modern classics as we step into the future,” the studio said on its official website.
- In addition to Disco Elysium, Longdue draws inspiration from classic games like Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Ultima, and Wizardry.
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Dark Math and Longdue Games are not the only studios formed by Disco Elysium developers. In 2022, Robert Kurvitz (Disco Elysium creator and the game’s lead designer) and Alexander Rostov (the game’s art director) registered a new company in the UK called Red Info Ltd. There is not much information about it, except that they received a backing from NetEase.
