Disco Elysium Provides a Collage Mode to Fabricate New Scenes, Former Creatives Dispute Studio ZA/UM’s Claims

Disco Elysium’s PC model simply acquired a Collage Mode. After a few Valentine’s Day-themed tweets teasing it, studio ZA/UM has dropped a enjoyable diorama device that permits you to arrange {custom} scenes with beloved characters hailing from Revachol, with added aptitude resembling filters, magnification, stickers, and extra. The free replace weighs about 300MB and will be accessed from the principle menu. It additionally options “Bonus Secrets to Find” referring to the historical past of Martinaise — the placement within the sport — a brand new voiceover from the deep-voiced narrator Lenval Brown, and 5 new unlockable Steam achievements. This information comes within the midst of the continued authorized dispute between Disco Elysium’s creators and studio ZA/UM.

Contrary to a photograph mode, Disco Elysium’s Collage Mode doesn’t allow you to pause the sport halfway to take screenshots that may be edited. Instead, it permits you to create a setting from scratch — you may drag and drop characters, select areas from the sport, regulate climate situations and time, add filters and frames, and even add textual content. The sport is about on a two-dimensional isometric aircraft, on which each and every merchandise seems hand-painted. Think of it as a scrapbooking device with cutouts that you just glue on to create your personal scenes. The drag-and-drop controls allow you to place dozens of belongings wherever you need and even zoom in to comically enlarge the characters. You can set them in daft poses resembling a backflip, curling right into a ball, dancing, and even making out.

There’s a sticker assortment for added aptitude as nicely, starting from merchandise photos from inside Disco Elysium’s stock to custom-made, emoji-like materials. It goes with out saying that enjoying round with the Collage Mode earlier than ending the sport might reveal some spoilers — at the very least when it comes to characters and environments. Heck, I actually found two new characters that I by no means met in my six thorough playthroughs of Disco Elysium! Time to hunt them down in my seventh one, perhaps? There’s additionally a dialogue reel you may allow to enter some wacky strains to your personal detective story. The device serves as break from the sport’s heavy-hitting narrative, as you may simply fiddle and create artwork whereas the attractive music from Sea Power performs within the background. The photos you create will be saved domestically in your PC and even in-game to be used/ modifying later.

The response to this replace has been blended, with some loving the content material however others unable to indicate assist for it as a result of ongoing authorized dispute that Disco Elysium is embroiled in. Late final yr, a Medium publish from Martin Luiga, co-founder and secretary of the “ZA/UM cultural association,” confirmed that Disco Elysium’s core creators, designer Robert Kurvitz, artist Alexander Rostov, and author Helen Hindpere, have not been working on the firm since late 2021. “…their leaving the company was involuntary. Which would seem like bad news for the loving fans that are waiting for the Disco sequel,” the publish reads. “The reason for dissolving the cultural organization is that it no longer represents the ethos it was founded on. People and ideas are meant to be eternal; organizations may well be temporary.” Luiga served as an editor on the sport.

Studio ZA/UM responded to this by claiming that Disco Elysium “was and still is a collective effort” and that it had “no further comment to make” in addition to promising a brand new challenge from the crew. Bear in thoughts that the aforementioned ZA/UM cultural affiliation and ZA/UM studio are being handled individually. This was adopted by Kurvitz and Rostov issuing an open letter to followers, during which they claimed that the brand new house owners of the studio took management by way of fraud and reiterated that they had been booted out of the corporate. The Estonian businessmen Ilmar Kompus — now CEO at ZA/UM — and Tõnis Haavel fired again arguing that the workers had been fired for misconduct and making a poisonous work atmosphere. Amidst this, former govt producer Kaur Kender launched his personal authorized battle, claiming that he too was fired after the brand new administration took over.

Earlier this week, studio ZA/UM acknowledged that the continued authorized battle with Kender was resolved, however in a new assertion to Eurogamer, creatives Kurvitz and Sander Taal dispute numerous the claims. “The press release quotes Kender admitting that he has filed a ‘misguided’ lawsuit against ZA/UM in late 2022. We disagree. Kender’s lawsuit was based on the misuse of ZA/UM’s funds (€4.8 million) by the majority shareholders [and new owners] Kompus and Haavel to increase their own stake in the company,” the assertion reads.

“In the press release, Kompus and Haavel admit to this misuse, arguing only that the money has been ‘paid back to ZA/UM’. Paying back stolen money, however, does not undo the crime; here, it does not undo the majority that Kompus and Haavel have illegally gained in ZA/UM.”