Today, May 21st, marks the release of ZA/UM’s Zero Parades, the studio’s Disco Elysium follow-up arriving following years of drama and turmoil surrounding the original game and the people who made it. So, naturally, one of numerous Disco-like games which have sprung up over the past few years has chosen that day to put out a new trailer, while also shouting about having recruited another former Disco Elysium developer.
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If you’ve been following the great Disco schism, you might recall Londgue’s partially-crowdfunded RPG Hopetown, set to to tell the tale of a journalist attempting to uncover – or cover up – the truth in a mining town called New Greenwich that’s seen better days. Playing as this rogue journo, Zola, you’re tasked with adopting a correspondent, columnist or gonzo-based approach that can help you unpick the aftermath of “a coronal mass ejection that fried all electronics and communication devices across the globe”.
Following this cataclysmic event, there’s been a storm which has thrown a spanner in the works of a corporation’s efforts to mine Quicksilver, a material with the power to reconnect the world. Cue some missing miners and rumours that the Quicksilver’s dried up, which you’ll investigate via the likes of examining photos and conducting interviews, before putting together an article on the mysterious happenings.
That narrative setup sounds promising on its own, but alongside it, Longdue are keen to keep on pushing their team’s Disco credentials as they attempt to convince folks to back the game. Here, they trumpeted the recruitment of another ZA/UM veteran, this time writer Olga Moskvina. Interestingly, Moskvina was cited as a co-founder of another Disco spin-off studio headed by ex-ZA/UMers, Summer Eternal, when that worker-owned art collective launched in 2024. Longdue’s press release wasn’t specific about Moskvina’s job title, simply asserting that she’s joined the team working on Hopetown, alongside fellow new addition and Shadows of Doubt writer Stark Holborn.
“I am thrilled to have such a talented professional join the team,” Martin Luiga, who quietly took over as narrative lead on Hopetown last year, said of Moskvina in a press release accompanying the trailer. “Her proficiencies as both a writer and editor are likely to get us to a level of polish befitting our audience, as evidenced by her undeniable contributions to Disco Elysium.”
As for the trailer itself – even that begins with more trumpeting that ex-Disco devs have worked on it – Hopetown still looks quite like its inspiration, much in the same way that Zero Parades does despite switching things towards spying. As such, it’s very tough to tell at the glance offered by the brief snippets of gameplay here whether Longdue’s game will have enough unique juice to mark itself out as more than a Disco imitator whenever it arrives. There is a section showing off menus dedicated to keeping notes and drafting an article, so it’ll be interesting to see how much depth those elements have, as they’ll likely be the key to setting the game apart from the crowd.
Right now, though, Hopetown remains without a release date. It’s wishlistable on Steam if you’re so inclined.
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