ZA/UM lays off up to 32 staff two months after Zero Parades launch

ZA/UM, the studio behind Disco Elysium, has announced layoffs affecting up to 32 employees — just two months after releasing Zero Parades: For Dead Spies in May 2026. The studio posted a statement on X/Twitter citing the game's commercial underperformance despite critical acclaim.

In the statement, ZA/UM said it has "served redundancy or at-risk notices impacting up to 32 of our colleagues across all departments." The studio acknowledged the affected staff's contributions and called on other studios to consider hiring them. ZA/UM also confirmed it will continue working with its Workers' Alliance union throughout the process, and insisted the cuts will change "the shape of ZA/UM, but not its purpose." Zero Parades launched on PC and PS5 on May 21, 2026, and holds an 83 on Metacritic — solid, but a step below the bar set by Disco Elysium.

This is far from the first rough stretch for ZA/UM. In October 2022, key creative figures including writer Robert Kurvitz, writer Helen Hindpere, and art lead Aleksander Rostov reportedly left the studio involuntarily. Kurvitz and Rostov later filed a lawsuit alleging that Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel of Tütreke OÜ had obtained control of ZA/UM through fraud — claims the studio denied. Then in 2024, another round of roughly 24 layoffs hit, and a standalone Disco Elysium expansion was quietly canceled. Several former ZA/UM developers have since formed their own studios: Dark Math Games is working on XXX Nightshift, Longdue Games is developing Hopetown, and Summer Eternal has also announced itself.

The community reaction is one of weary sadness rather than surprise — ZA/UM has been in near-constant turmoil since 2022, and many players had already emotionally separated the studio from the creative team that made Disco Elysium. What comes next for the downsized ZA/UM remains unclear, though the studio insists its artistic ambitions are intact.