"Imagination doesn't need a lot": Disco Elysium successor announces first RPG

Usually I don't cover announcements of announcements. It's a strange marketing ploy that often tells us nothing about the game in question and only serves to generate unnecessary hype for a something that it may or may not succeed in matching. However, Disco Elysium successor studio Summer Eternal is announcing its first game with a physical reveal campaign. Yes, you read that right. The game itself won't be a physical release - not necessarily, anyway. The announcement itself, however, will be a physical book, soundtrack, and art piece shipped to your door on the exact same day as everyone else in the world.

Of five studios made up of former Disco Elysium developers, Summer Eternal is the one that intrigues me the most. Labeling itself as an arts collective, it strikes me as the studio that is staying most true ZA/UM's original premise. With Disco writer Argo Tuulik at the helm, it's got one of Disco Elysium's brainchildren, and it's the only one of the splinter studios that is worker (and player) owned.

But what game is it making? Summer Eternal's first project has been pretty mysterious, until now, that is. It's an RPG, which we could have guessed but didn't explicitly know, and it's codenamed Red Rooster. Codenames don't tend to offer any hints at what the actual game is about, but thankfully Summer Eternal is sending out an announcement next year to shed some light on the subject.

This announcement won't come in the form of a website, a traditional press release, or a post on social media, however. Summer Eternal is eschewing traditional forms of announcement and instead releasing a book, a vinyl record, and multiple pieces of art to hint at what Red Rooster will be about. Summer Eternal calls it a "cultural mega-project" that spans media and acts as a development diary, a game announcement, an interactive artwork, and a method of self-funding the videogame all in one.

Summer Eternal founder Tuulik tells PCGamesN that he yearns for the days of analogue media, where our imaginations could run wild based on the smallest amount of information. He recalls seeing a handful of screenshots in a games magazine and extrapolating from that, discussing possibilities and potentialities with friends.

"Respecting the power of the human imagination and carefully crafting moments for it to do its magic is a core design-philosophy in Summer Eternal, because there is no more powerful graphics processor in existence," he says.

But he also explains that, as well as non-fiction essays about the state of the industry, Anthology 1 will drip feed us scant details about Red Rooster itself. "Due to the way we build games with the heaviest of focus on the narrative from the get-go," Tuulik says, "Even the internal design documents are written like their own little mini-stories. Imagination doesn't need a lot-in fact, give it too much and you're telling it how it is not how it could be."

The matchbox-themed Summer Eternal Anthology 1 intends to support artists, small businesses, and sustainability with every page. Expected to arrive at everybody's house on the exact same day in summer 2026, this feels like a chance to be a part of a different games industry, away from $55 billion takeovers and microtransaction-based monetization. To that effect, Summer Eternal promises that "zero percent of your money will be spent on executives or corporate bonuses."

You can pre-order Summer Eternal Anthology 1 now. The standard edition costs €69 / ~$79 / ~£59, and the deluxe Firestarter edition, which includes the vinyl record, art prints, and a cardstock replica matchbox costs €99 / ~$115 / ~£85 and is limited to 3,000 copies. You can pre-order them from the Summer Eternal website here, where you can also see all the creatives involved in the project.

If you're intrigued by the premise of Red Rooster, I can recommend checking out our list of the best indie games. Not all are as cryptic, but they're brilliant in their own ways. The best PC games will keep you going until next summer, too.

Will you be buying Summer Eternal Anthology 1? Let us know in our community Discord server, where readers and staff cook up experimental art projects but mostly discuss the latest gaming news.