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Hey, at least this one isn't two and a half hours!

I really can't believe we're back here for a second time, but as you'll hear, we really felt we had to return to Disco Elysium and settle some unfinished business. This is largely driven by just how much has now happened in the years since we published that first investigation, but I think we've also been looking for the right moment to return to this topic and reflect on our original documentary as well.

This follow-up has been an enormous amount of work and so once again, thanks for sticking with us during a period of radio silence while we got this one out the door. It's also one of the more expensive videos we've ever made, with us travelling over to Croatia to film the main interview of the piece, but we've also been working with a script editor and a media lawyer on this one, given the nature of the reporting. I don't think we could have hit ever publish without that kind of support behind us (well, perhaps we could have, but we may have then been facing a lawsuit of our own) and we've only been able to make that happen because of all of you here on Patreon. So thank you so much for that.

And now, I need a bit of a lie down.

Files

It's Time We Talked about Disco Elysium, Again

In the aftermath of our Disco Elysium documentary in 2023, so much has now happened. It's time we talked about it. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PeopleMakeGames Follow Chris on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisbratt.bsky.social Music & SFX: Epidemic Sound 0:00 - Reflecting on the previous documentary 19:59 - The Many Successors(?) to Disco Elysium 38:57 - How ZA/UM Fell Apart, Again 1:18:45 - The Lawsuit that could sink Summer Eternal 1:49:29 - Argo Tuulik has his eyes set on Elysium

Comments

David Lomax

I look forward to watching it tonight. Well done!

Jim Huxter

Looking forward to this! Seemed like the last one caused quite a stir. Definitely a subset of the community who seemed determined to believe the creaitives behind the game could do no wrong so I'm sure this must have been a nerve-wracking one to make

George Platen

Well done everyone, great watch, and a lovely note to end on. FWIW I still agree with the editorial choices of the original. Not taking control of the narrative is almost impossible, but at least you didn't throw in the towel and dumb it down. Oh, and my lawyers have advice me I can say this: CoGrammer are clearly predators.

Matus Chochlik

This is why you are my favorite game-dev journalists.

Anthony Glenn

Riaz sounds like every Dudebro tech scammer I've ever encountered,

Mark Fajfar

So far just watched the intro and I don't think there was any fault in your editing. Documentaries demand a lot from viewers, who have to watch critically and with an open mind to come to their own conclusions. You gave viewers all the facts they need in a sensible order. If you edit too much to "highlight" certain points you run the risk of introducing even more bias.

Untellable

So if I'm understanding correctly: Argo proposed that locust city downsize for the moment, and gets shot down. Then later management shuts it down saying it's bloated and people get fired anyway, probably more than would've been if they'd only downsized it. So isn't that pretty much confirmation that he was right? Or at least that management made a mistake on scoping? There's some distinction between the size of the team being too big vs the size of the actual project being too big, but it's easy to imagine that a growing team encourages growing scope.

Michael Chui (Duiker)

I mean, he was probably right, but that doesn't mean he should've proposed it. When you make proposals like that, you need to be the one falling on your sword.

LifeSword

Just finished the video, and subscribed to your Patreon because of it. Thank you for covering this story with such care and attention, despite the great expense and legal risk. As others have said, I agree with your direction from the first video. You let everyone give their side of the story and attempted to be as fair and factual as possible. It seems a vocal subset of the game's fans were set on believing in the purity and righteousness of the creatives involved above all else, so the messy, complex, more complete picture you presented certainly wasn't gratifying for them.

iani_ancilla

Just watched the intro so far but wanted to say: thank you for doing it. It's hard (at least for me) to realise how much the way a documentary is put together can change things, and your analysis of the old one, the choices you made, and how they created some problems, was in itself very interesting, and hopefully made me a better watcher!

Matus Chochlik

Given the new bits that Chris has revealed on the Human can opener podcast, Riaz seems to be quickly becoming the new Ilmar.