[STEAM] Controversial Disco Elysium studio plans 32 layoffs after latest RPG's underwhelming "commercial performance": "Our artistic standards remain unchanged"

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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,"

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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

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among the company leadership's

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into finger-pointing, lawsuits, and an apparent hostile takeover from CEO Ilmar Kompus, who studio founder Robert Kurvitz

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. 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

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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

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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.

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