The Making of Disco Elysium - Part Five: Collapse

TL;DR

Disco Elysium's final development phase was marked by team splits, substance abuse, a 'death march' crunch, and mass firings before the game even launched.

Key Points

• 1.- The writing team was split between Estonia and the UK, with Robert Kurvitz, Argo, and Helen moving to Brighton to finish writing, while Olga remained as the sole writer in Tallinn.
• 2.- Substance abuse was a significant destructive factor during production, with Danny noting some team members never fully recovered.
• 3.- The title 'Disco Elysium' was chosen by Robert after nearly everyone — including American publishing contacts — told him it was a bad name; the previous title was 'No Truce with the Furies.'
• 4.- Management hired Polish white-label company Knights of Unity to finish programming with five months left, after firing most of the original engineering team at their contract end dates.
• 5.- Producers Kosmos and Lembit Jürgenson were let go just days after the programmers were sacked, leaving Olga as one of the last original team members in Tallinn.
• 6.- The final nine-month 'death march' phase began after Kaur Kender secured a last round of investor funding, with it made clear no further money would be available.
• 7.- Disco Elysium launched in October 2019 with a Metacritic score above 90 — a score Robert had literally promised investors — yet he felt no happiness or relief upon seeing it.
• 8.- The Game Awards ceremony in LA was the moment Helen realized the game's true scale, as the team hadn't even prepared a speech because they didn't expect to win anything.