7年后，《极乐迪斯科》的叙事仍未被超越，但我们永远得不到续作

The most appealing thing about role-playing games is the narrative and how it draws players in. Whether you follow an interesting protagonist, explore a world that reacts to you, or create your own avatar and jump into the story, RPGs have it all. But despite the genre’s long history and numerous hits, one game stands above the rest thanks to its storytelling, and nothing has topped it in seven years. And what makes this so significant is that we will almost never see a true sequel, despite the same developer and others attempting to reach its heights.

Disco Elysium took the gaming industry by storm on October 15th, 2019, and to this day it is one of the most praised RPGs in history. This is due to its incredible narrative combining a detective story, bruised atmosphere, and argumentative inner voices. Few games have managed to rival it, and I doubt we will see another title top it because of the game’s messy post-launch drama. Because of ZA/UM’s fractured history, departed creators, and canceled projects, the team that produced Disco Elysium can never be restored, and its spiritual successor, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, only proves how once-in-a-lifetime the game is.

Disco Elysium Made Your Own Mind the Most Interesting Character

The murder investigation in Disco Elysium gives Harry Du Bois a job and the player a direction, but his damaged sense of self gives the story its force. His skills behave like competing voices, offering observations, temptations, and terrible advice. Improving an attribute does more than make him competent and give the player an edge. It completely changes Harry’s way of thinking and changes the role-playing experience. Building his character also means deciding which unreliable parts of his personality get the loudest microphone during a conversation.

I remember wanting to impress Kim Kitsuragi more than I wanted another successful skill check because he was one of the most interesting characters to me. But picking a favorite character or moment is so difficult because of how good the writing in Disco Elysium is and how well it blends several feelings. An absurd exchange does not remove the sadness underneath it. Instead, laughter makes the next admission of loneliness or regret harder to dismiss. These people remain vulnerable even when the writing becomes ridiculous.

Revachol gives that vulnerability a political and historical context. The city feels shaped by failed revolutions, economic desperation, and people trying to survive consequences they did not choose. This pressures every conversation rather than simply feeling like a backdrop for the narrative. These are just some of the reasons why Disco Elysium won Best Narrative at The Game Awards in 2019, and for me, its storytelling remains unbeaten because character, setting, and mechanics all combine to create the perfect masterpiece.

The Sequel We Wanted Was Lost in ZA/UM’s Fracture

The reasons for pessimism extend beyond a long silence. The creators of Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov, and Helen Hindpere, all led to the cancellation of the sequel, Project Y12, along with a standalone expansion, Project X7. Then there were the layoffs at ZA/UM, further dwindling the creative team behind the game. With so many of the developers gone and the cancelled projects, it is hard to imagine how ZA/UM could ever recreate Disco Elysium’s magic.

The departure of the creative team isn’t necessarily black and white, but much of the blame is placed on the higher-ups at ZA/UM. Conflicting claims make it hard to settle exactly what happened, but the rift is very clear. The separation between important creators and the studio associated with their work has all but left zero possibility that we will ever see a sequel to Disco Elysium despite the studio and the current team’s best efforts.

This can be seen with Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. ZA/UM’s espionage RPG launched on PC on May 21, 2026, introducing troubled operative Hershel Wilk and another system of psychologically charged skills. It is a separate setting, not Disco Elysium 2, and Kurvitz is not its creator. Calling it a spiritual follow-up describes the resemblance, but should not erase its identity or confuse the company’s continuity with the return of the original creative leadership.

Its Influence Has Escaped the Fate of Its Sequel

While there may not be a sequel, we can clearly see Disco Elysium’s influence elsewhere, and not just in Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. Esoteric Ebb developer Christoffer Bodegard explicitly explained that Disco Elysium encouraged him to incorporate elements into an existing RPG design. The game’s bones feel so much like Disco Elysium, and fans were quick to notice. It certainly stands on its own, and the positive reception to the game shows how much players want another Disco Elysium.

Summer Eternal’s Red Rooster suggests another direction. The studio describes a physics-driven RPG about inmate Redrick Roost investigating arson alongside a mathematician with an opiate dependency. Its ambitions include a reactive environment where objects can be moved, manipulated, and burned. Summer Eternal includes former developers from Disco Elysium, but this is a new fictional world. It may not be Disco Elysium 2, but it looks like it could be a good alternative.

I still want the sequel that might have existed before everything changed at ZA/UM. More importantly, I want games willing to treat people with the same mixture of cruelty, curiosity, and compassion. Seven years later, Disco Elysium remains extraordinary because it lets a broken man be funny without making his pain disposable. Successors can inherit techniques, and new studios can carry forward artistic convictions. What they cannot promise is that exact meeting of elements that led to the perfect story, and that is a true loss to the industry.