ZA/UM, the studio behind Disco Elysium, is set to cut around a third of its workforce just two months after releasing its follow-up game, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. The studio said the game's commercial performance had not been strong enough to sustain its current headcount, despite the release earning critical acclaim. The cuts are significant given ZA/UM's troubled history, including years of internal disputes before this second title finally launched, and follow a pattern of past departures that have already seen several ex-staff set up rival studios.

In a statement, ZA/UM said it had served redundancy or at-risk notices to up to 32 of its roughly 100 employees, spanning all departments, and that leadership had been consulting with the ZA/UM Workers' Alliance, the first recognised video game union in the UK games industry, formed in October 2025. Numerous former ZA/UM developers have already left to form their own studios working on spiritual successors to Disco Elysium, including Tangerine Antarctic, Hopetown and Red Rooster, though none of these projects has yet been released.