Ups... die Videospiele Sektion hat er mittlerweile auch entfernt / löschen lassen.
Die Geheimniskrämerei und Paranoia der Videospielbranche ist an Albernheit mittlerweile kaum noch zu überbieten.
Wie meinen?
Since 2019, A Disco Elysium sequel, a sci-fi RPG in a new setting, and a full-size Elysium spin-off game have been canceled or "paused," while a heated personal and legal dispute between founding members hangs over ZA/UM's every move. That last canceled game, described as "a spin-off about one of the most beloved characters in Disco Elysium" and spearheaded by one of the first game's principle writers, wowed other teams at the studio in an internal demo at the end of last year. It could have been on our SSDs as early as 2025.
This project was cancelled in February, much to the shock of most ZA/UM employees, and nearly the entire team—including that Disco Elysium writer, Argo Tuulik— was laid off. I spoke with 12 current and former employees, including Tuulik and fellow X7 lead writer Dora Klindžić, to find out what went wrong.
In the absence of a full sequel to Disco Elysium, X7 was going to be a spin-off—smaller than Disco, but still full-scale—headed up by Tuulik, someone who has been part of the Elysium creative project from the start and who wrote some of Disco Elysium's standout characters like the foul-mouthed urchin Cuno and the Hardy Boys, a vigilante militia whose frat boy veneer conceals a strange nobility.
"It was a spin-off about one of the most beloved characters in Disco Elysium," explained one developer who worked on the project. "I feel like it was the best possible shot at a Disco-like game without [Kurvitz], Rostov, and other people that made the original Disco Elysium."
Klindžić said, "It was something no one else but Argo could have done, and it would have been 110% authentic, most hardcore Disco since Disco." She added that X7 "would have advanced the story, the emotional threads, and gameplay elements all at once to truly evolve the genre of psychological RPG as Disco Elysium started it.
"For a while it seemed like miracles were possible, and with them, redemption."
The internal response to a company-wide showcase of the game at the end of 2023 seems to have been uniformly positive, with developers on other teams at ZA/UM telling me they were impressed with the demo. "Everyone was looking forward to its development," one of them said. "Its internal announcement lifted a lot of spirits after a rough time of bad press around the studio."
They also thought it was "exactly the sort of game [ZA/UM] needs to put out," and that it could "reassure fans that ZA/UM is not a husk, that the IP is in safe hands and that the studio is full of talented people with a genuine love for the world of Revachol."
My sources disagree on when X7 could have been ready for release, with some saying a 2024 launch wasn't out of the question, while others argued 2025 was more realistic. Klindžić, for her part, thought that with less interference from management, "it could have perhaps been a three-year development cycle start to finish." Project X7 began development in 2022.
According to one set of draft story concepts discussed by several sources, Fishlabs' Red Faction game would have been set 100 years after Guerrilla on a more terraformed and colourful Martian world map of similar size to the previous game's world, featuring new and redesigned locations. There were plans for a female protagonist, who would once again take part in an underground workers revolution. There would likely have been a range of factions, from predatory corporations to homegrown Martian communities, with whom you might have had to forge alliances to complete your objectives.
While the game was envisaged as a "safe sequel" with a familiar emphasis on wrecking buildings, members of the Project White team also wanted to create a more open-ended play experience - closer to an immersive sim, perhaps, with opportunities for stealthy infiltration and player disguises alongside vehicle customisation. There were pie-in-the-sky aspirations to create an extremely reactive setting with dynamic dialogue, in which characters would comment on your methods of completing quests.
Fishlabs pitched the Red Faction game several times to Plaion, the studio's immediate corporate parent. The most elaborate pitch came in mid-November, and involved an element of cosplay. In addition to screening the "fake trailer", team members posed as characters from the game, with the Red Faction resistance group "hacking" a presentation given by a sinister corporate agent. Plaion's immediate feedback was positive, and sources say there was wide confidence that the game would be greenlit. But it wasn't to last.
During the week of 20th November, there was another internal vote on the Red Faction project's future. The vote was split 50-50, which meant that the Red Faction game was immediately cancelled. In the wake of the cancellation, Fishlabs studio leadership were told to lay off almost everyone not attached to an active game project. The crucial email came on a Friday, with Fishlabs bosses then working over the weekend to draw up a list of people who would be let go.
Guillemot replied that the series would see a variety of games in the coming years, including numerous remakes.
“Firstly, players can be excited about some remakes, which will allow us to revisit some of the games we’ve created in the past and modernize them,” Guillemot said.
“There are worlds in some of our older Assassin’s Creed games that are still extremely rich.
“Minimum Studios’ strength lies in animation production for consumer home video game development, and the studio has carried out work on major Capcom titles in the past,” a statement by Capcom reads.
Bray subsequently claimed the Master Sword was a “fidget” — something to keep his hands busy — that he had bought online
... ....
"It is possible to find fidget toys that aren’t six-inch blades. It is possible not to walk down the street holding them out in front of you. With a bit more self-awareness, Bray could have avoided contact with us completely.”