ZA/UM is cutting up to 32 jobs only weeks after releasing ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies, putting fresh pressure on the studio behind Disco Elysium and reigniting anger among fans who believe the company’s handling of its acclaimed RPG has permanently damaged the brand.
In a statement issued Friday, ZA/UM said the layoffs would affect employees “across all departments.” The studio attributed the decision to the commercial performance of ZERO PARADES, explaining that sales had not been sufficient to maintain a team of its current size.
The wording is significant: ZA/UM described the affected staff as having received redundancy or at-risk notices, meaning the full number of confirmed departures may not yet be known. The studio previously had around 100 employees, and said it had continued consulting with representatives of the ZA/UM Workers’ Alliance during the process.
A critically praised game arrives at the worst possible moment
ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies launched for PC on May 21, 2026. Developed and published by ZA/UM, it is a single-player, text-heavy isometric RPG built around espionage, dialogue, character development and dice-driven skill checks.
On paper, the game had many of the ingredients associated with Disco Elysium. It is not a direct sequel and does not use the earlier game’s characters or setting, but its structure, writing-heavy presentation and focus on political ideas made comparisons unavoidable.
Critical reception was generally strong, although not universally glowing. Eurogamer awarded the game five stars, praising its reactive writing, intricate cast and the creative team’s ability to build a living narrative. Metacritic listed the PC version with an 83 critic average, placing it in broadly favorable territory.
Other reviews were more skeptical of the way ZA/UM transferred its established formula into a spy thriller. PC Gamer argued that the game’s individual conversations and systems could be compelling, while its espionage premise sometimes failed to make the player feel like a genuine covert operative. That divide is important: ZERO PARADES appears to have succeeded for many critics as a narrative RPG, even when some reviewers felt it did not fully deliver on its spy-fiction ambitions.
That makes the layoffs especially painful for the developers involved. A game can be critically acclaimed and still fall short of the sales needed to support a large studio, particularly when it follows an unexpected breakout hit and launches under intense scrutiny.
Why fans are directing their anger at ZA/UM
The reaction to the layoffs has been shaped by far more than the performance of ZERO PARADES. ZA/UM has spent years at the center of bitter disputes involving the ownership of the studio, the Disco Elysium intellectual property and the departure of several of the original game’s most prominent creators.
Disco Elysium game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov accused the studio’s management, including Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel, of acquiring control of ZA/UM and its intellectual property through fraudulent means. They also said they were dismissed after raising questions about the company’s finances.
Kompus and Haavel denied allegations of financial wrongdoing. Management later made its own accusations against the former employees, including claims concerning workplace conduct, alleged inactivity and attempts to sell ZA/UM intellectual property to other companies. Kurvitz rejected those claims and argued that they were intended to distract from the ownership dispute.
Public reporting and investigations, including People Make Games’ documentaries, have portrayed the conflict as considerably more complicated than a simple story of artists versus executives. Allegations of toxic management and workplace problems have appeared on multiple sides of the dispute, while several legal actions were dismissed, withdrawn or left unresolved in the public eye.
For fans, however, the distinction between the company and the people who made Disco Elysium has become increasingly sharp. Some players see ZA/UM as the corporate owner of a beloved creative work whose original vision was pushed aside. Others have argued that the game was the result of a much larger team effort and that the post-release mythology has unfairly reduced hundreds of developers to a handful of famous names.
The irony of Disco Elysium hangs over every announcement
The studio’s latest crisis carries an uncomfortable irony. Disco Elysium is a game deeply concerned with class, labor, inequality, institutional power and the human cost of economic systems. News of another round of redundancies at the company associated with that work inevitably invites comparisons between the game’s politics and the reality of its production.
That does not make every criticism of ZA/UM automatically correct, nor does it erase the contributions of the staff who worked on ZERO PARADES. It does explain why even a commercially motivated restructuring has become a cultural flashpoint rather than a routine business story.
ZA/UM also faced layoffs in 2024 after a reported Disco Elysium spin-off was cancelled. Around 24 employees were reportedly affected at the time, alongside claims that the studio had suffered from crunch, burnout and internal conflict. The latest announcement therefore feels less like an isolated correction and more like another chapter in a prolonged collapse of confidence.
What this means for ZA/UM’s future
The studio says the workforce reduction changes ZA/UM’s shape but not its purpose, insisting that its artistic standards remain intact. That statement leaves the company’s next project, long-term staffing plans and relationship with the Disco Elysium property unclear.
For now, the most immediate concern is the people leaving. The team behind ZERO PARADES has produced a game that many critics consider ambitious and worthwhile, even if its commercial performance failed to support ZA/UM’s previous scale. Those workers are now entering an industry already marked by widespread layoffs and studio closures.
Whether ZERO PARADES eventually develops a long-tail audience remains to be seen. Its critical reputation may help, but strong reviews alone cannot guarantee financial stability. What is certain is that ZA/UM’s brand now carries a burden few studios can survive indefinitely: every new release is judged not only as a game, but also as evidence in an argument about who owns the legacy of Disco Elysium.
Sources
[eurogamer.net]
[pcgamer.com]
[metacritic.com]
[steampowered.com]
