Longdue Games Studio has officially announcedHopetown, its spiritual successor to the hit RPGDisco Elysium. Developed by ZA/UM Studios and released in 2019,Disco Elysiumwas widely praisedfor its groundbreaking twist on the detective RPG genre, featuring innovative, thought-provoking mechanics and an irresistibly engaging story. After it took home four Game Awards and a BAFTA, all eyes were onDisco Elysium’s creators as rumors of a sequel-successor reached a fever pitch. But conflicts at ZA/UM instead led to legal struggles and multiple different splinter studios. One of those, Longdue, has just announced its first game.
Longdue has begun work onHopetown, a new RPG soon to launch its very own crowdfunding campaign.Building onDisco Elysium’s core RPG mechanics,Hopetownstars a rogue journalist in a mining community where ambitions clash and secrets lie buried beneath the ground. They’ll have to wheedle the truth out of its tight-lipped inhabitants, then choose how to spin it in their final, published work, and watch how their choices shape the world. Fans can participate in its crowdfunding campaign soon, with further details to be revealed viaLongdue’s website.
How Hopetown Builds On The Promise Of Disco Elysium
New Systems & Psychogeography
Through the lens of amnesiac detective Harry DuBois,Disco Elysiumtells a variable story. Your choices shape your ideology, your ideology shapes your identity, and your identity shapes your choices in an ourobouros of RPG brilliance.Hopetownstarts with a similar concept: a journalist investigating goings-on in a small mining town. They’ll need to choose their words carefully both when speaking with others and when crafting their stories, choosing to become an iconoclastic sensationalist, a reality-twisting conspiracy theorist, or a truth-seeking investigative journalist.
How Disco Elysium’s Weirdest Rules Make D&D Better
Disco Elysium is a landmark game that evokes the feeling of tabletop RPGs. Dungeons & Dragons DMs can learn from the game and make campaigns better.
Hopetownwill also introduce new mechanicsinto that familiar formula, creating a more dynamic world. For example, the new psychogeography system will allow the player character to interact with the world through their thoughts, using things like memory and emotion to solve puzzles and open new avenues of progress.Hopetownpromises the player’s decisions will be impactful and wide-ranging, affecting the player character as much as they affect the world around them.
What’s more,Longdue has recruitedformerDisco Elysiumcontributorsto lend their RPG expertise to the spiritual successor. One of these is Piotr Sobolewski, who worked with a team of devs at The Knights of U, a Unity co-development studio. Says Sobolewski of his contribution, “Having overseen the team of 15 that was credited with ‘saving’ Disco Elysium and which worked on it for nearly six years, pre- and post-release, I’m excited to work with the Longdue team to create a rich RPG experience to serve fans of the genre.” Further collaborators will be revealed during the crowdfunding period.
Disco Elysiumwriter Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov previously announced that they were not involved with Longdue.
