Our Disco Elysium Documentary

Since its release in October of 2019, our community has consistently asked us to reach out to the developers of Disco Elysium to document its development.

Sadly the story of Disco Elysium did not end with its breakthrough critical and commercial acclaim. In the intervening years the creatives behind this project have been embroiled in spider-web of strained relationships, accusations and legal battles. A story too long and complex to summarize in an opening paragraph.

We've actually been talking to these folks for a few years now. And by "these folks" I mean Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov and Helen Hindpere. If you know anything about the post-launch controversy surrounding ZA/UM - the art collective turned studio responsible for Disco Elysium - it's most likely the fact that these three were fired in October of 2022. The justification for their firings has been the focal point of much of the online discourse surrounding the game and studio for the past two and a half years.

My first call with Robert was a one-on-one back in the Spring of 2023. It had been facilitated by a mutual friend of both myself and Robert who was eager for us to collaborate. Truth be told, both of us were wary of each other. I had been wanting to interview Kurvitz ever since Jeremy first brought Disco Elysium to my attention. I'd loved Kurvitz' appearance on GameSpot's Audio Logs in 2020 - to my knowledge his only appearance on camera in the mainstream games press after the game's release. And (I am told) a spotlight on his particular talents he was later lambasted for by the studio's leadership.

The reason I was wary is that over the past eight years I've worked hard to make sure Noclip is not used as a tool of marketing propaganda. It's difficult to give the spotlight to developers without constantly making videos that feel promotional in nature. We learned those lessons with our preview-piece on Fallout 76. We try our best to document games long after their release and make sure not to platform bad actors. When we do cover games pre-release (Hades) we establish visual and narrative rules to make sure the videos impart as much earned authenticity as possible. But with allegations and lawsuits swirling around, I had no interest in becoming a tool to sway public opinion. Regardless of the direction.

The very nature of this initial meeting let me know that Kurvitz felt similarly, and with good reason. What we were proposing was a documentary about a game from a studio he was fired from. A studio with whom he, and several of his colleagues, are embroiled in legal action with to this day. The world of Elysium was once Kurvitz' baby, but Disco is no longer his. We both needed to understand our motivations and see if there was any common ground.

And so we did, over the next few months I talked to Kurvitz remotely on several occasions. Sometimes talking about game development but often not. We'd chat about European politics, religion, our childhoods, music, love, sports. At times it felt like being stuck in an intellectual boxing match a weight class higher than I was comfortable with. Robert is an exciting, charismatic person to talk to - something that can be both a blessing and a curse for a documentarian. His ability to weave narrative is incredibly strong. Those of us who make stories about reality are distrustful of such people. Perhaps we are good judges of character - or maybe we just hate giving over control.

As an aside it's also a wonderfully humiliating experience to be out-vocabularied by somebody who speaks English as a second language. Though you're several paragraphs into this post so you've long figured out who the better writer is.

As time passed Aleksander Rostov (Artist) and Helen Hindpere (Writer) joined our calls, and we started to talk more directly about our motivations to tell this story. For them there had never been an opportunity to talk about their greatest artistic work in detail - save for the game's limited edition art book which hides behind an eye-wateringly expensive Collector's Edition of the game. Yes, we bought a copy so we could film it - please support us on Patreon! 

Robert wanted to emulate the creators of his favorite games in sharing development lessons. What he thought the team got right, and crucially, what they got wrong. So much of the trio's time these days is spent in bitter disputes surrounding the history of the game. It appeared to me that they longed for an opportunity to express their feelings about the project away from the legal turmoil that had long-occupied that part of their shared history.

As for my motivations; Disco Elysium is a modern classic. And while much of the discourse around the game focuses on wars of money, words and intellectual property - I didn't want to miss an opportunity to preserve the story of one of the greatest video games of our time.

One unnegotiable I communicated to Robert was that I wanted to highlight the work of everyone on the team - regardless of if we talked to them or not. The original team behind Disco is quite small and while I wanted to talk to more of them, I knew many would be unavailable or disinterested. The trio had no problem with this. It seemed that reconciliation was a motivation we could all get behind. It's certainly a flavor of propaganda I can at least stomach.

We were in a good place to start organizing our interviews - and then the People Make Games video dropped.

What I didn't realize then was that around the time I started talking to Kurvitz he had recorded an interview with People Make Games in which my friend and colleague Chris Bratt (who hosted a Noclip on Creative Assembly) had questioned him about allegations of workplace misconduct alleged by some former colleagues. When myself and Robert's mutual friend had convinced him to jump on a call with me, we didn't realize it was in the shadow of that interview. This was likely his motivation for wanting to feel me out.

Once the People Make Games video was released in May of 2023, both myself and Robert had no interest in doing interviews. The online discourse around the three, the studio and the lawsuits had reached a new zenith. Allegations had been made, relationships had been damaged, and it was clear to me that there was a war of public opinion going on.

The video took me by surprised too. I watched it twice the day it went up, fascinated by what I had heard from the other side of the court. I called Chris on Discord immediately after I'd watched it the first time and we exchanged notes. The Robert and Rostov in his documentary were very different to the ones I'd spoken to. Robert was angry, confused and hurt. Rostov barely spoke in the PMG interview, which was far from the gregarious, jovial artist I'd chatted to online. In the PMG piece it looked as if Robert wasn't allowing the meek Rostov to speak. To me it looked like one friend trying to protect another. Perhaps the least objectionable truth is somewhere in the middle.

I had originally planned to reach out to ZA/UM to talk to some of the original developers who were still at studio - but by this stage I deeply mistrusted their leadership. I also had a knot in my stomach trying to figure out the perspectives and motivations of some of the people who had been interviewed - both in the People Make Games piece, and in other publications since. It seemed clear to me that there were some hidden wars going on - either an aspect of the lawsuit(s) or interpersonal issues that were muddy, opaque. Lingering bitterness? Professional survival? There was too much going on for me to get a good read - and though some of the allegations were more serious, some others seemed like schoolyard handbags. This was all very messy.

I was also confused by many of the statements from the studio leadership that made little sense to me given what I had learned over the previous months. I believe strongly in accountability and justice, but I also understand the power of video to cement narrative. Chris and the team at PMG had conducted brave work in service of trying to uncover the truth behind an incredibly complicated and dynamic situation. They approached the investigation with honest intentions but were now fielding intense criticism online for what many said was a mixing of two largely separate stories; one about IP theft and another about workplace misconduct. ZA/UM would argue the two were connected, but then, of course they would.

Some of the criticisms of PMG's documentary were in good faith, but much of it was not. I am weary of internet tribalism and the drama-bait that motivates so many clicks on YouTube's so it's important to me that people do not interpret our documentary as a response to their piece. We obviously don't ignore the accusations and we talked to our interviewees about the culture and communication during development. But Noclip's mission has always been to tackle the broad scope of games development and allow viewers to come to their own conclusions. We don't attempt to communicate an objective truth. Only to color in as many shades of the canvas as we can, so that perhaps you can squint and get an idea of what games development is like. To promise anything more would be a lie. At the end of the day, you're watching a YouTube video - you're not in the room making the game. None of us are.

I gave Robert, Rostov and Helen space, and over the coming year ZA/UM were battered by contradictory accusations, fired most of the staff, and cancelled several projects.

None of the original Disco Elysium team works at ZA/UM anymore. I don't know if anyone works there anymore. From what I've learned the studio doesn't have an office anymore. I suspect this story is far from over.

EDITORS NOTE FOR ABOVE: For clarities sake I've since been told by other sources that the remote ZA/UM team still employs a decent number of people - both remote and in studio. My use of the phrase "original Disco Elysium" has also been interpreted in a few ways so let me clarify that some people who worked on DE over the years are still employed by ZA/UM. Including one person who I consider part of the original team. I had heard otherwise, so my apologies for that.

Fast forward to April, 2024. I don't know what happened - maybe my daughter had said something funny during breakfast, or the sun was shining at the right angle - but when I sat down to start work that morning I just started typing an email to Robert's producer. "Disco - Round 2" read the subject line. I remembered a year earlier Robert had suggested we film in the summertime so I could enjoy the long summer days of peak northern hemisphere living. As the three of them are located back in Tallinn, capital city of their native Estonia. Just a short walk from the original building where Disco Elysium was birthed.

He responded. The trio were down. I booked the flights. Tallinn in July.

I was flying over to conduct three interviews - but given the weight of the story, the complexity of all that had happened, and how personal each telling of this past was likely to be - I decided to go solo and spend a full week in the city with the team. I spent my time in Tallinn talking to locals, hanging around the trio's new studio, getting access to the old one, exploring abandoned buildings at sunrise and forest cemeteries at sundown. I talked to people who work with them, and walked with Helen and Rostov through their childhood neighborhoods. I didn't interview Robert until my final day in town.

Also I kept finding myself in locations from the film TENET - which may be the worst movie I like. I don't need it to make sense, did you see that car un-crash backwards? That's cinema baby.

The week was productive. We had a lot of detailed, honest conversations about the project. Our documentary on Disco Elysium will dive deep into the formation of the ZA/UM art collective. It'll tell the story of the early pen and paper campaigns that inspired Disco. It explores the development of the game, it's mechanics, art style and writing. And it tells the story of a group of friends who made something incredible - the good times and the bad. They also supplied us with loads of never-before-seen photos of footage from development. We're complimenting our Tallinn-based interviews with Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere with other voices too - some of whom haven't been recorded yet.

Our goal, as ever, is to document the development of this game with as much detail and heart as possible. I'll warn you now, the patron-exclusive extended interviews are going to be pretty fantastic on these ones.

We still have a bunch of work to do, but we hope to get our story on Disco Elysium out into the world in the next two months. It's going to be long. It might be one video, or split into episodes. But we know this is the one opportunity to tell this story so we want to ensure we do it right.

If you value our work to preserve the history of games, please consider becoming a Patron. We are a small independent team who don't have shitty corporate owners or stick adds all over our videos. We do this work because we think it's important. If you agree, we'd really value your support.

Thanks so much for reading this. If you have any questions stick them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them.

Danny