Robert Kurvitz, lead writer and creative director of the acclaimed Disco Elysium, recently made an appearance at Korea’s G-Star 2025. As reported by local outlet Gamemeca, Kurvitz joined Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, the lead writer behind Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, in a talk session themed around storytelling in games.
During the session, Kurvitz touched upon the kind of themes he’d like to explore in his future work (Note that this is based on machine translation, so the exact nuance should be taken with a grain of salt). “I want to make a very gloomy game that lays bare the worst of humanity – depressing, negative and dark,” he commented. It seems the story Kurwitz is envisioning would explore how far a “successful character” can plunge into failure and suffering, or as he puts it, “how deep humans can sink into the mud.”
Although not quite as hopelessly dark as the potential new project he’s describing, the creation of Disco Elysium also took a toll on Kurvitz. He describes writing as “a very miserable art.” Reflecting on how he crafted Disco Elysium’s narrative, Kurwitz commented, “I actively incorporated elements like anger, sorrow and obsession into the game to make players chase after them. This is how I strove to draw them into these absurd situations, into the fantasy.” For Kurvitz, the process was painful. “I had to put political anguish and my own existence into the game, and to even start working on it in the morning, I needed constant personal effort to motivate myself.”
For now, details about Kurvitz’s ongoing and/or future projects remain scarce. In 2022, it was reported that he had founded a new studio alongside Disco Elysium lead artist Aleksander Rostove. Called Red Info, the new company was reportedly set up with funding from Chinese game publisher NetEase.
