Baldur's Gate 3 Karlach actor hits out at RPG devs trying to recruit them for their Disco Elysium successors: "Miss me with that casting call"

Disco Elysium
(Image credit: ZA/UM)

Since Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM split up, several spiritual successors have popped up to carry the torch, but Baldur's Gate 3's Karlach actor has some choice words for people who try to hire them in a project without the original creator's involvement.

Samantha Béart, who shot to fame as in their role as Karlach in 2023, tweeted "To the next studio that tries this: if your 'spiritual successor' to Disco Elysium does not involve creator Robert Kurvitz, then save both of us some time and miss me with that casting call." Ouch.

Béart clearly holds a lot of respect for Kurvitz and his work if they're not even willing to entertain offers from any Disco Elysium-related games that aren't involving him. Disco Elysium is a fantastic game, one I thoroughly enjoy, but it's wild to think it's had such an effect on people that they're willing to turn down work because the original creator isn't involved. I suppose when you're Karlach you get your pick of the jobs, though.

Disco Elysium was conceived during a drunken night in Tallinn, "We were just hanging around in total squalor and poverty," Kurvitz says. It went on to become a hit, but then the studio fell apart and many of the game's developers went their separate ways.

In just one day, two spiritual successors to the critically acclaimed RPG were announced. Neither of those studios have Robert Kurvitz working with them. The Disco Elysium creator set the game in the same world as his novel, Sacred and Terrible Air, which is an incredible title. It didn't do well, though. "It sold 1,000 copies," says Kurvitz. "So after that I succumbed to deep alcoholism."

Kurvitz made a new studio with DIsco Elysium lead artist Aleksander Rostov, Red Info. It's backed by NetEase, which did a u-turn on its Marvel Rivals mid-season rank reset just hours after it was announced.

If you want to play more things like Disco Elysium, check out all the best RPGs you can try now.

Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.

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