After the breakout success of Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz remains committed to exploring how far human darkness can be pushed through narrative design. Even though his split from ZA/UM derailed several projects, the creator continues to pursue stories about failure, collapse, and emotional decay.

It has been a long time since Disco Elysium launched, and much of what followed has been turbulent. TIME Magazine may have called it the best game of the decade, but key developers were removed “involuntarily” from ZA/UM after investors seized control. Accusations, lawsuits, and internal clashes mounted, eventually killing several projects. One of them, led by Robert Kurvitz, would have been even darker than anything he had created before, and while it will never be released, parts of its ideas may survive in his next game.

At the G-Star 2025 event (via Automaton), Kurvitz joined Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, lead writer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, for a talk on narrative in video games. While he avoided discussing his departure from ZA/UM or his current work, he reaffirmed that the grim creative vision behind his post-Disco Elysium plans still defines his artistic direction.

He explained that the concept centered on following the downfall of a “successful” character into misery and ruin – a metaphor for how deeply a human being can sink. Kurvitz has long been fascinated with decay, vulnerability, and hopelessness, but this next project would have pushed those themes even further, with an even harsher and more pessimistic tone than Disco Elysium.

Writing Disco Elysium Took Everything Out of Him

Kurvitz reflected on the emotional cost of creating Disco Elysium. He described writing as “a very miserable art” and said he poured his own anger, sadness, and obsessions into the game to immerse players in absurd, emotionally charged situations. “I had to put my political anxiety and my own existence into the game” – he said, adding that each morning required enormous effort just to continue working on the script.

There is still little information about Kurvitz’s future projects. What is known is that he founded a new studio, Red Info, in 2022 with Disco Elysium‘s lead artist Aleksander Rostov, backed by NetEase. No details have been shared about the early development of their next game.

Source: 3djuegos