Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM – or at least what remains of it after a fractious few years of mudslinging, firings, and lawsuits – has announced its next game: a dice-rolling blend of psychedelic sci-fi and espionage thriller it’s calling C4.
C4 casts players as an operant serving a questionable global power who finds themselves “locked in a vicious, clandestine struggle for the truth and influence”. It’s a quest for secrets, set in a world of shadowy characters and concealed conflicts, that’s said to offer a blend of player introspection, deep character-driven dialogue, and dice-based high-stakes encounters.
“Yet it is the mind that takes centre stage in C4,” ZA/UM explains. “More vulnerable and somehow more powerful than the physical world, it can be erased, changed, reordered, and of course significantly altered through regular use of psychoactive substances. Players must steel themselves with whatever comfort they can to survive the violent canvas of the real.”
In a brief conversation with press ahead of C4’s official unveiling, ZA/UM writer Siim “Kosmos” Sianamäe shed some light on the philosophy driving C4’s development. “We want to build on what we’ve done before,” he explained, “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.”
Fellow C4 writer Jim Ashilevi added, “[This] is a game all about spy stuff – spy games, allegiances, betrayals – [but it] is not 007, with his hero complex, the Bond girls, gadgets. It’s more like Slow Horses: doing the work you love even if it does not get you any fame or praise. No heroes, only the stench of failure.”
And failure appears to be a theme central to C4. “What differentiates us from other RPGs out there,” Ashilevi continued, “is failing forward. 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.”
As to how all this will play out in more specific terms, that remains to be seen. For now, ZA/UM seems content to speak in more thematic terms, with C4’s striking announcement trailer being accompanied by Sianamäe’s tease that “betrayal is only possible in the presence of love”.
What the studio is willing to share, though, is a whole heap of influences it’s drawing upon for its latest project, ranging from the spy fiction of John le Carré to the “weird” science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, Phillip K. Dick, and Stanisław Lem. Even Park Chan-wook and French TV drama Le Bureau get a mention, with Ashilevi noting the latter “really [captures] how normal civilians get entrapped or seduced into intelligence work, and how keeping secrets compounds for those members of humanity who do it professionally.”
At the moment, there’s no hint of a release date – or even target platforms – for C4, but ZA/UM says it’ll be sharing more details during next week’s Game Developer Conference.
C4 is the first game to emerge from ZA/UM since 2019’s widely acclaimed Disco Elysium, and follows years of convoluted legal drama among executives and former members of the creative team. With at least some of that now said to be resolved, and with different members of the original Disco Elysium team now scattered across the globe, multiple new projects have been announced by Disco Elysium alumni since October.
Over in the UK, there’s Dark Math Games and Longdue – two studios comprised of former ZA/UM developers that both announced Disco Elysium spiritual successors last year. Longdue is working on a “psychogeographic RPG” it’s now unveiled as Hopetown, while Dark Math is developing a detective RPG called XXX Nightshift. Additionally, former Disco Elysium writer Argo Tuulik also announced his new Summer Eternal studio in October, confirming it too is working on an RPG. And if you thought that was confusing, last year’s barrage of announcements was accompanied by yet more messy drama.
And that’s without factoring in what Disco Elysium lead writer Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov – who were both fired from ZA/UM in 2022 amid allegations of mismanagement and misconduct – will do next. The pair have set up their own studio, Red Info, and were previously said to be making a game with backing from NetEase.
