‘Disco Elysium’ lead designer Robert Kurvitz sues ZA/UM

Robert Kurvitz, lead designer for Disco Elysium and author of the novel the game was based on, has submitted a lawsuit against ZA/UM, the developing studio and publisher for the game.

As spotted by Tech News Space, Kurvitz has filed legal proceedings against ZA/UM through a county court in Estonia, and a hearing will be held on November 28.

The court’s listing states that Kurvitz is seeking to “obtain information and review documents” concerning the studio, of which Kurvitz was a core member until he left “involuntarily” at the end of 2021.

The specifics of Kurvitz’s case is unclear at this time, however his departure from ZA/UM appears to have been messy. Earlier in the month, ZA/UM founder Martin Luiga shared that he had left the studio “involuntarily” along with Kurvitz, Disco Elysium writer Helen Hindpere, and art director Aleksander Rostov.

“I, Martin Luiga, a founding member and secretary of the ZA/UM cultural association, as well as the assembler of most of the core team, am hereby dissolving the ZA/UM cultural association (not to be confused with the ZA/UM company),” Luiga wrote on October 1.

“Neither Kurvitz, Hindpere nor Rostov are working there since the end of last year and their leaving the company was involuntary,” added Luiga, who said that “the reason for dissolving the cultural organisation is that it no longer represents the ethos it was founded on.”

Following Luiga’s claims, a ZA/UM representative said that “the development of Disco Elysium was and still is a collective effort,” and said at the time that it “had no further comment to make other than the ZA/UM creative team’s focus remains on the development of our next project.”

Earlier in the year, a number of job listings at ZA/UM suggested the studio is working on a sci-fi game, though nothing has been confirmed just yet.