After setting up a new studio in an “apocalyptic” time for game developers, the Disco Elysium writer says that “this industry is done,” but “video games aren’t yet.”

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Like most dismissed that have tormented the video games industry over the past year as ZA/UM cut back on plans Disco Elysium expansion along with many of the developers’ jobs, it was devastating. Fans couldn’t believe that ZA/UM wouldn’t want to keep an RPG as gripping as Disco around forever. However, the developers are well aware of how callous video game executives can be. They don’t let that stop them.

“I think this industry is over,” said Disco Elysium writer Dora Klindžić in a recent interview with VG247. “But luckily for everyone, video games aren’t.”

Earlier in October, some former ZA/UM employees – including Klindžić and fellow Disco writer Argo Tuulik – announced the new studio Summer Eternal. According to its website, Summer Eternal promises to be owned by the workers and players, and to “push back against Big Tech’s encroachment on the territory of our art.”

Klindžić elaborates on this point in VG247’s interview, saying: “Summer Eternal will not fix the games industry, although as a byproduct of our operation we could generate a panacea for agriculture, astronomy, inaccurate bus schedules, those fake messages posted on your mother are targeted.” , local elections and syphilis.”

Sounds good. And everyone seems to agree; Summer Eternal organizer Aleksandar Gavrilović, for example, agrees with Klindžić’s suggestion that Summer Eternal is not a cure. It is a salve for the pockmarked games industry, coming from that same industry.

“I myself ascribe to the accelerationist view that the only way to achieve better conditions is to confront crises that underline the contradictions of society and force us to remake the world,” he says.

But before Summer Eternal reinvents the world, he has to work on his untitled first game. Klindžic says VG247 that fans should not expect a second Disco Elysium.

“We will work the way artists do, which means we will have both eyes on the work, not one on the audience and not one on the competition,” she says.

A spiritual successor to Disco Elysium that “continues a legacy” of RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Fallout and Icewind Dale is in the works from Bungie, Rockstar and ZA/UM veterans.