ZA/UM, the studio behind Disco Elysium, is cutting roughly a third of its workforce, just two months after releasing its follow-up game, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. In a statement, the studio said the game had been "released to critical acclaim" but that its commercial performance had not been strong enough to sustain a studio of its current size, leaving redundancy or at-risk notices served to up to 32 staff across all departments.

The studio, which had almost 100 employees at the time of the announcement, said leadership had continued consulting with representatives of the ZA/UM Workers' Alliance, the first recognised video game union in the UK games industry, formed in October 2025. ZA/UM has a history of turbulent staff departures, and several former developers have already left to found rival studios pursuing their own Disco Elysium-style successors, including Tangerine Antarctic (formerly XXX Nightshift), Hopetown and Red Rooster, none of which have yet released a game.