The PC version of Disco Elysium just got a collage mode. After a few tweets about Valentine’s Day, Studio ZA/UM released a fun diorama tool that lets you create custom scenes featuring beloved characters from Revachol, with added flair like filters, magnification, stickers, and more. The free update weighs around 300MB and can be accessed from the main menu. It also includes “Bonus Secrets to Find” related to the story of Martinaise – the in-game setting – a new voiceover by the deep-voiced narrator, Lenval Brown, and five new unlockable Steam achievements. This news comes amid the ongoing legal battle between the creators of Disco Elysium and studio ZA/UM.
Unlike a photo mode, Disco Elysium’s collage mode doesn’t let you pause mid-game to take editable screenshots. Instead, you can create an environment from scratch – you can drag and drop characters, choose locations from the game, adjust weather conditions and time, add filters and frames, and even add text. The game takes place on a two-dimensional isometric plane where each item appears hand-painted. Think of it as a scrapbooking tool with cut outs that you glue on to create your own scenes. Drag-and-drop controls let you place dozens of assets wherever you like, and even zoom in to comically enlarge the characters. You can put them in silly poses like backflip, curl up in a ball, dance or even make out.
Create the disco scenes of your dreams.
Introducing Collage Mode: the new feature that gives you the creative freedom to stage just about anything in the game.
Now available for PC and Mac players, the console will be launched soon: https://t.co/PTkM4PBmLy pic.twitter.com/3dCZGmGzyQ
— Disco Elysium – The Final Cut (@discoelysium) March 16, 2023
There’s also a sticker collection for added flair, ranging from item images from Disco Elysium’s inventory to custom emoji-style material. It goes without saying that playing around with collage mode before exiting the game might reveal some spoilers – at least in terms of characters and environments. Heck, I myself discovered two new characters that I never met in my six thorough playthroughs of Disco Elysium! Time to hunt her down in my seventh maybe? There’s also a dialogue scroll that you can activate to enter some wacky lines for your own detective story. The tool serves as a nice break from the game’s hard-hitting narrative, as you can just play around and create artwork while Sea Power’s beautiful music plays in the background. The images you create can be saved locally on your PC or even in-game for later use/editing.
Reaction to this update was mixed, with some liking the content but others unable to show support for it due to the ongoing legal battle Disco Elysium has been embroiled in. late last year a Medium post by Martin Luiga, co-founder and secretary of the “ZA/UM Cultural Association”, confirmed that Disco Elysium’s key creators, designer Robert Kurvitz, artist Alexander Rostov and writer Helen Hindpere, stopped working for the company as of the end of 2021 … her departure from the company was involuntary. Which would be bad news for the loving fans waiting for Disco’s sequel,” the post read. “The reason for the dissolution of the cultural organization is that it no longer represents the ethos on which it was founded. Men and ideas are meant to be eternal; Organizations can be temporary.” Luiga served as the game’s editor.
Atelier ZA/UM answered by claiming that Disco Elysium “was and still is a collective effort” and that it has “no further comment to make” aside from promising a new project from the team. Note that the above mentioned ZA/UM cultural association and the ZA/UM studio are treated separately. It was followed by Kurvitz and Rostov, who spent one open letter to fans, in which they claimed the studio’s new owners took control through fraud and repeated that they were booted out of the company. Estonian businessmen Ilmar Kompus – now CEO at ZA/UM – and Tõnis Haavel fired back arguing that employees were fired for misconduct and creating a toxic work environment. In the midst of this, former executive producer Kaur Kender launched his own lawsuitand claims he too was fired after new management took over.
Studios earlier this week ZA/UM indicated that the ongoing litigation with Kender has been settled, but in a new statement on EurogamerCreatives Kurvitz and Sander Taal dispute many of the claims. “The press release quotes Kender admitting he filed a ‘misguided’ lawsuit against ZA/UM in late 2022. We disagree. Kender’s lawsuit was based on the misuse of ZA/UM funds (EUR 4.8 million) by the majority shareholders [and new owners] Kompus and Haavel to increase their own stake in the company,” the statement said.
“In the press release, Kompus and Haavel acknowledge this abuse and merely argue that the money was ‘repaid to ZA/UM’. However, repaying stolen money does not undo the crime; here the majority that Kompus and Haavel obtained illegally in ZA/UM is not reversed.”
