Some of the people behind Disco Elysium have revealed their next game. Summer Eternal, a studio made up of former ZA/UM developers, has announced Red Rooster, which it calls an “incendiary, physics-driven RPG,” as reported by Gematsu and Eurogamer.
Red Rooster will launch first on PC, with PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 versions to follow. There is no release date yet.
An arsonist’s case
You play as Redrick Roost, a white-collar inmate who is pushed into the role of arson investigator and paired with an opiate-dependent mathematician. Together they look into a string of fires that all seem to connect to Redrick’s brother, who happens to be the city’s fire chief.
The game is set in the “fractalized border archipelago” of Arta-Tantor, a three-part city in a political alternate history with a hard science fiction edge. Summer Eternal says it wants to combine “the best of cerebral, worldbuilding-rich RPGs with the genetics of physics-driven immersive sims,” with a world full of objects you can move, manipulate and burn.
That is a big shift from Disco Elysium’s static, isometric view. Red Rooster is being built in Unreal Engine as a fully 3D game with a dynamic camera. Eurogamer reports the studio is nearing the end of pre-production, already has an internal playable tech demo, and is aiming for a “double-A” budget like the compact team behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Red’s inner mind also gets a twist: a space called The Coop, populated by rooster versions of himself that represent different urges and motivations.
A book first
The reveal comes with a 500-page physical book, Anthology Volume One, featuring concept art, design work and worldbuilding along with interviews about the games industry. Gematsu reports it is being delivered to “thousands of fans” within 48 hours of the announcement. Buyers also become members of the Summer Eternal Players Non-Profit, which owns five percent of the studio and gets a say in how five percent of Red Rooster’s profits are used. A Deluxe Edition of the game will include a 10-inch vinyl with four tracks from the soundtrack.
Summer Eternal includes Disco Elysium writer Argo Tuulik, Dora Klindžić, Anastasia Ivanova and Michael Oswell, as well as Lenval Brown, the voice of Disco Elysium’s narrator. ZA/UM itself, meanwhile, is preparing Zero Parades: Director’s Cut for PS5 on Nov. 3.
