Fittingly, Summer Eternal isn’t aiming to “outdo or even match” the original Disco Elysium, because it’s driven more by artistic vision than profit

“We leave that business to the profiteers.”

Image credit:Summer Eternal/ZAUM

How do you follow-up your work on Disco Elysium , without just making something that’s too much like Disco Elysium to be as innovative as Disco Elysium was? It’s a hell of a riddle, and also a thing that Summer Eternal , the new studio featuring ex-ZA/UM devs that came with its own manifesto, is grappling with.

“Comparisons and expectations are inevitable,” Klindžić said of the studio’s approach to the game it’ll be making, “but the origin of our work will be our present conditions, our present team, our present reality, not the past which will never be recaptured again, and is a fool’s errand to chase.

“Ultimately, as we build and design this game from scratch, we will evaluate each element only on the basis of whether it does justice to what we as the team want to make today. Of course, as the big man’s quote goes, men do not make their history as they please, so our present will always be informed by our past. But we want to shed all unnecessary baggage and focus on building the future.

“We are approaching this process without intent to ‘outdo’ or even ‘match’ Elysium or to compete with any other company on Earth or in orbit, nor to lay claims to any targets of commercial success. We leave that business to the profiteers. We will work as artists do, which means both eyes on the work, not one on the audience and not one on the competition.”

Tuulik, meanwhile, said: “I think we’re just gonna wing it. ‘No man steps into the same river twice’, says obscure Heraclitus (obscurely). Rather than trying to be different for difference’s sake or same-y as if there was a formula for this, I will follow the dopamine. I trust that what we make will feel familiar but new.”

Summer Eternal isn’t the only new studio with ex ZA/UM devs taking on this kind of task with a new game - Longdue and Dark Math Games , announced that same week earlier this month, will have to work out how they want to ascend Lenin’s mountain.

Disco Elysium

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Fittingly, Summer Eternal isn’t aiming to “outdo or even match” the original Disco Elysium, because it’s driven more by artistic vision than profit#

Fittingly, Summer Eternal isn’t aiming to “outdo or even match” the original Disco Elysium, because it’s driven more by artistic vision than profit