The “announcement of an announcement” has become an aggravating marketing trend in recent years, but this is the first one to actually get me excited: Summer Eternal, the embattled RPG studio and worker collective co-founded by former ZA/UM writers Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindžić, will offer the first details of its first game not through a press release or prerendered trailer, but a book of art, essays, and dev diaries shipping next summer.
“Part cultural journal, part development diary, part exclusive game reveal—the Anthology Volume One is a chronicle of the first year of Summer Eternal, as well as a map into the collective’s future,” Summer Eternal says of the book.
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“By pre-ordering the Anthology, you will participate in the exclusive globally-coordinated reveal of our first RPG not via press release nor through social media, but through the analog medium of a beautifully illustrated, custom designed 150-page book and its accompanying vinyl record, both created and built by small worker-led teams of creatives, developers, artists and musicians.”
It’s a somewhat confounding idea, but also excites me as such a genuine surprise. Rather than the familiar rhythms of a bombastic but derivative trailer, or all the cases of exciting indie projects that just lose steam in early access, this is something I haven’t seen tried before.
It helps that it’s not just a game announcement, but a premium-looking product made in collaboration with an established, independent publisher: Peregrine Coast in the UK. What’s more, it leverages the unique visual identity and graphic design Summer Eternal has already established through its website.
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The first volume of the anthology is not cheap at €69 ($81) for the book alone and €99 ($116) for the book and 7″ vinyl with the first two tracks of the project’s eventual OST, but this strikes me as an instance of getting what you pay for as opposed to the cheap, plastic crap I’ve seen in so many videogame collectors’ editions. The studio says revenue from sales will go first to the artists and collaborators who helped make it, with anything left over going to fund the studio’s first project, codenamed Red Rooster.
As for why the studio might warrant such a display (and investment), Summer Eternal was co-founded by Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindžić, two writers from Studio ZA/UM. Tuulik has been described as the creator and primary writer behind Cuno, Disco Elysium’s memorable, lovable, yet horrible little boy.
Both were the principle writers and originators of the canceled ZA/UM project, X7, since revealed to have had the working title Locust City. According to leaks that have been scrubbed from the internet, the Disco Elysium spinoff would have centered on Cuno and Cunoese, with the player alternating control between the two.
Each would have had their own skills, with newcomers as well as returning favorites. One of my favorite planned features was a management sim minigame centered on a cardboard box full of locusts Cuno carried with him, building on his imaginary play with a “city” of locusts in Disco. The locusts would have reportedly built a civilization in the box that players could influence.
It sounded rad, and I wish I could have played it. The off-the-wall design ideas just struck me as so fresh and electric, in a similar way to how Disco Elysium itself took me by surprise back in 2019.
After announcing Summer Eternal last year, Tuulik and Klindžić were issued an injunction to cease game development work by a UK court on behalf of Longdue, the studio behind Disco Elysium-style RPG Hopetown. Longdue founder and owner, Riaz Moola, alleges that Tuulik and Klindžić violated a non-compete clause of their former employment by him.
Tuulik and Klindžić argue that they have been unfairly harassed by Moola, and are not subject to any non-compete clause covering game development, as they worked for a different company owned by Moola and not in a game development capacity.
Klindžić and Tuulik ultimately left the UK for Croatia, setting up a GoFundMe to cover the cost of their relocation. All of these developments are covered in greater detail in a follow-up Disco Elysium documentary by People Make Games on YouTube.
Disco Elysium is one of my very favorite videogames, but I’ve felt a great deal of fatigue following the recriminations and lawsuits in its aftermath, wishing someone would just make something and let that speak for them. This Summer Eternal Anthology is not a game, but it is something, and it looks cool and unique.
The original Studio ZA/UM is also, blessedly, doing something: Its first follow-up game to Disco Elysium, Zero Parades, is a spy thriller set to release next year, recently showing off gameplay and a stylish prerendered trailer. Seeing the game for the first time earlier this year, I’m intrigued by its direction and some of its mechanical advancements, but also worried at how much it seems to be playing it safe in its resemblance to Disco Elysium.
Red Info, the studio headed up by Elysium setting creator Robert Kurvitz, Disco artist Aleksander Rostov, and writer Helen Hindpere, has yet to reveal what it is working on. Dark Math Games, founded by Disco producer Kaur Kender, has renamed its RPG project from XXXNightshift to Tangerine Antarctic, and also switched from an isometric perspective to a zoomed-in third person camera. Longdue has yet to announce a major update about Hopetown since its successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year.
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