Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the follow-up to Disco Elysium from ZA/UM Studio, was a success, at least from a critical standpoint. The game got rave reviews across the board, including from Kotaku. But according to ZA/UM, financial success didn’t follow the critical acclaim and as a result, the studio says it’s been forced to implement layoffs.
“We have served redundancy or at-risk notices impacting up to 32 of our colleagues across all departments at ZA/UM Studio,” the studio posted on social, saying that it is working with ZA/UM’s labor union to navigate the layoff process.
— ZA/UM Studio (@studiozaum) July 17, 2026
The layoffs represent another setback for ZA/UM, which has been rocked by layoffs and scandal for the last four years. In 2022, three of the studio’s founders, Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov, and Helen Hindpere, revealed that they had left the company “involuntarily” and that the remaining ZA/UM leadership had been trying to keep the split under wraps.
In response, Kurvitz and Rostov sued ZA/UM for allegedly taking over a majority share of the studio illegally, beginning a series of complicated legal exchanges that would eventually be resolved a year later. During that time, however, ZA/UM claimed that the reason the three were let go was because they fostered a toxic work environment, with Kurvitz also allegedlyt trying to illegally sell ZA/UM’s intellectual property.
It was a very messy, upsetting affair to watch the studio responsible for what’s been called one of the greatest narrative games ever fall apart while on the cusp of developing a sequel, something the remaining members of ZA/UM could never quite manage. In the years following Disco Elysium‘s release, ZA/UM would cancel numerous projects, further alienating its remaining creators who would leave the company to spin off three separate studios, all gunning to create Disco Elysium‘s worthy successor. So far, none but Zero Parades have released, a feat that is itself tarnished now with layoffs representing an unfortunate irony when you understand the game’s central theme.
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