Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM has formally thrown its hat into the kinda DE successor maelstrom, asserting an upcoming spy RPG codenamed Challenge C4, which its builders explicitly say is not a Disco sequel.
As a substitute, it is a gritty sounding sport that is extra Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than James Bond. Within the first a part of a presentation asserting it with a teaser, C4’s writers had been launched as Siim ‘Kosmos’ Sinamäe and Jim Ashilevi, who labored on the unique Disco Elysium as a producer/author (citing Fool Doom Spiral as a personality he had a hand in) and lead voice over director respectively.
The pair acknowledged that over the previous 5 years, amongst different issues, ZA/UM has been “settling in a wider, expanded workforce, with many new faces bringing of their abilities and recent views”, including that these devs have “discovered the best way to work collectively and iterate, so we’re in a position to make video games for the long run”.
It is value pausing right here to notice that, as it’s possible you’ll properly know, plenty of former unique DE devs have departed ZA/UM in several and typically acrimonous methods since that sport got here out, together with the likes of key writers Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov, and Helen Hindpere.
As for this new sport, it appears to be like and sounds fairly Disco Elysiumy. “As an Operant serving a questionable world energy, the participant finds themselves locked in a vicious, clandestine battle for fact and affect,” the plot abstract reads, “But it’s the thoughts that takes centre stage in Challenge C4. Extra susceptible and extra highly effective than the bodily world, it may be erased, modified, reordered, and naturally considerably altered by common use of psychoactive substances amongst different means.” Gameplay-wise, amid all they spying, C4 “blends participant introspection, deep character-driven dialogue, and high-stakes encounters steered by cube rolls”.
Nonetheless, Sinamäe and Ashilevi mentioned the sport is explicitly “not Disco Elysium 2”. “We have now discovered quite a bit,” Ashilevi defined, “Most significantly, we have found what we did not need to be or do as a studio. We need to construct on what we have carried out earlier than, however not just by repeating it, or rehashing it.”
When it comes to the sport, Ashilevi later outlined that Challenge C4 is “all about spy video games, allegiances, and betrayals, including: “It’s not 007, together with his hero complicated, the Bond ladies, and the devices. It it extra like Gradual Horses – doing the work you like, even when it doesn’t get you any fame or parades. No heroes, solely the stench of failure”.
Extra particulars in regards to the sport will seemingly be shared at GDC, so we’ll need to see what they appear to be. For now, tell us how you are feeling about Challenge C4 under. Are you intrigued by it, or have the messy and controversial occasions that’ve adopted the unique Disco’s launch grow to be arduous to look previous?
