Disco Elysium (2019)

Disco Elysium is truly impressive. The sheer volume of dialogue—much of it internal and fully voiced—is staggering. The skill checks and branching narratives constantly keep you on your toes. While many compare it to Planescape: Torment, the closest comparison for me, having played that only as a teenager, would be L.A. Noire—though Disco Elysium takes things much deeper, especially thematically.

The setting evokes a powerful sense of disorientation, much like the film Dark City. I recently heard an interview with its creators, where they explained the idea of building a city stitched together from different epochs and places to unsettle the viewer. Disco Elysium’s city, Revachol, feels similar—part post-WW2 Berlin carved up by foreign powers, yet full of French names, and infused with class tensions that feel like 1920s America. The city feels real, but just uncanny enough to keep you uneasy.

Your investigation doesn’t begin with a murdered woman, as is so often the case in noir fiction, but with a lynched security guard—allegedly killed by Union workers. From the start, the narrative flips expectations.

The game unfolds in real time: people go to work, shops close at night, and you’re constantly reminded of time slipping away. It reminded me of Shenmue, especially with the need to hustle for cash. You begin not only broke but also in debt. One of your first ways to make money? Collect empty bottles from the streets.

The perk system is particularly unique. “Perks” are instead called Thoughts, which you have to internalize over in-game hours. This process often comes with temporary debuffs, making each choice a risk. Skill checks are another layer of complexity—some can only be tried once, while others benefit from preparation or even specific dialogue choices. Sometimes a bad choice before a check can saddle you with a penalty that almost guarantees failure.

One thing the game doesn’t explain well is how essential the Volition skill is. Early on, you’re rarely in physical danger, but your morale can be chipped away in conversations. If it hits zero, it's game over—just like losing all your health.

On the fourth evening, things escalate. A violent confrontation between mercenaries and the Union's “regulators” erupts. I’m not sure it’s even possible to fully diffuse it—you likely won’t know the killer’s identity by that point. I only survived by wearing heavy armor and not having a gun. I’d let Ruby go earlier, so I never retrieved her weapon, and I failed to recover my own pistol.

My first ending went like this: Ruby and Klaasje both escaped, Titus died, and the Colonel was killed by a mad communist who’d been hiding on an island, still fighting a long-ended war. Oh, and I had a conversation with a gigantic telepathic insect—the phasmid. After all that, Harry is reinstated to the force, and Kim joins him at Precinct 41.

I didn’t manage to finish the MMORPG side quest. Maybe next time. I’m definitely planning another playthrough, with a new build and a different set of Thoughts, to see how much the ending can actually change.

On my second run, I played the Sensitive archetype. Of the three main builds, it's probably the most balanced—high in both health and morale. But I made a mistake choosing the Revacholian Nationhood Thought, which damages your morale for wrong dialogue choices and doesn’t offer much in return.

This time, I avoided the cryptozoologists, retrieved my gun, and helped with the welkins MMORPG quest. Also, if you play as the Sensitive Cop, your necktie starts talking to you—with an unhinged voice, no less.

I hit a wall with the Hardie Boys. There’s a Logic check you have to pass to begin tracking down Ruby. But with only one Logic point, I failed it—and couldn’t retry unless I leveled up that skill. I ended up killing time, hoping the communist club plotline would progress the story. It didn’t. Eventually, I had to reload a much older save.

If I have one criticism, it’s that the ending has less variance than it initially promises. Sure, Titus can survive, Ruby can die, Klaasje can be arrested, and you might miss the phasmid—but the killer is always the same old man on the island, someone you never meet until the very end. I can’t say “it’s not great writing”—it’s the best writing I’ve ever seen in a game—but I still felt slightly cheated. Just a little.

Oh man, I binged this game like I've never binged a game before. There are so many mysteries and secrets of Martinaise and its citizens to uncover, and I kept wanting to dive back in. Each time I found a new lead, I kept wondering where it would go next. Each time I didn't have a lead, I kept wondering where I could find one. I highly recommend this game to any fans of crpgs or mystery novels. Go in as blind as you can for the best experience.

I played with the physical build preset because I thought it seemed like the least likely choice for a game focused on story and dialogue, so I was pleasantly surprised by how useful the skills ended up being. I really enjoyed the constant chiming in of electrochemistry and half-light, but the best part by far was shivers. The vivid descriptions of the world really gave a sense of place, making it feel like recalled memories combined with detective's intuition. The way the game is designed really makes any of the defaults viable and interesting.

Kim is a treasure, and I loved his deadpan observations and stifled expressions. He's a much-needed foil to our chaotic, depressed protagonist. The other characters all have their own quirks and secrets to uncover over the course of the investigation, each one memorable and often tragic.

I missed the chance to do a political vision quest, so I might jump back in and check that out at some point. Maybe it'll give me the chance to see things from a different angle.

Platform – PC

Overview

Disco Elysium is a narrative-driven RPG first released in 2019. It’s a detective story set in the gritty, dystopian city of Revachol where you take on the role of an amnesiac detective trying to solve a murder case while battling his own inner demons.

Gameplay

Unlike traditional RPGs Disco Elysium has no combat system. Instead gameplay revolves around deep dialogue interactions, skill checks and decision making.

Story

Disco Elysium prides itself on its deep narrative but its writing often feels self-indulgent and overly pretentious. While the world-building is rich and detailed the sheer volume of text can be overwhelming. Conversations frequently spiral into philosophical musings that often feel more like a lecture than natural storytelling. The game explores themes of existentialism, politics, addiction and the weight of past choices. You can shape your detective into a brilliant investigator, a broken drunk, a political radical or something entirely unique.

Graphics & Sound

The game’s watercolor art style is unique, giving the world a hazy, dreamlike, hungover quality that visually complements its themes of memory loss and self-destruction. While the voice acting in the Final Cut edition is a nice, I found myself turning it off instead, preferring to read rather than listen. The narrator’s deep voice started to grate and the slow pacing of the delivery only made it worse.

The soundtrack, however, is atmospheric and minimal, perfectly echoing the bleak surroundings.

Verdict

I've picked this up and put it down about five times, each attempt getting a little further. The last try lasted about three hours. I kept pushing through because of its critical acclaim, award wins (including BAFTAs and The Game Awards) and praise for its writing and role-playing depth.

And yes, it’s ambitious and captures the feel of a true TTRPG but the sheer amount of dialogue and exposition makes it feel overwritten. The storytelling often becomes exhausting. I enjoy philosophical discussions but when every conversation stretches on for 30 minutes and goes off on wild tangents about every topic imaginable just because I said "Hello", it feels unnatural.

If I wanted to read as much as the game wants me to, I’d pick up a book, which I often do, but I play games for a different kind of engagement, not to sit in front of a screen slogging through endless exposition.

At this point, I’ve come to a conclusion: Disco Elysium just isn’t for me.

4/10

This is some deep shit, some political, introspective, hardcore and metaphorical shit. I don't even usually read that much, but this game got me hooked. Kept thinking about it long after a play session. I think this game messed with my brain quite a bit, changed my way of thinking about some stuff.

This one stays in my thought cabinet for a long time.

Playtime: 35 hours as a Commie, 40 as a Nazi, 30 as a Liberal.

Disco Elysium is a hard game to play and an even harder game to describe. Try listening to the soundtrack while reading:

The Role

Disco Elysium is a role-playing game. The word has lost some of its luster since the rise of CRPGs (C = computer). Usually it means there is some sort of character development in form of a skill system. Often it involves talking. Sometimes you even get to make some choices. These tend to be very simple, inconsequential, binary or a combination of those. "Do you want this quest? Yes/No" "Good option or bad option?"

Disco Elysium is like that. And it's not. It encourages you to be weird, to act irrationally, to fail. To appreciate this you have to "let go". In other games failing a check means not getting a reward. Here failing can reward you with a different outcome. Often you can try again later. Failing can also reward you with the knowledge that something just wasn't meant to be. You're fallible and that's just fine. Except when it comes to punching Measurehead, of course.

The Goal

Disco Elysium isn't really about "winning". I mean, sure, you are supposed to solve the case - but that's not the goal. The goal is to experience Elysium. Its places. Its people. Its history. The game takes place in an alternate reality similar to ours but with some supernatural twists. You learn about it in as much excruciating detail as you'd like. If you don't enjoy learning about the ins and outs of other worlds, this isn't a game for you.

Disco Elysium has a skill system that is geared towards this. Of course skills do what you expect them to do. Physical Instrument lets you bash things. Authority unleashes your inner Cartman. Perception helps you see. But even the most obvious-seeming skills have other uses. They let you learn about things, helping you to make choices, to fullfill your role.

The Soul

Disco Elysium has a lot of things. It has gorgeous art. It has a soundtrack like a warm bath. It has skills having conversations. It has oceans of text. And it has a soul - an ex-Soviet soul. It shows you when Kings and Communists have lost and Liberals have won. How do you pick up the pieces of a (sometimes literally) broken world? How do you stave off the crushing boot of capitalism? How do you survive in a world where you've been rejected by everyone?

Disco Elysium is a game populated by people. It shows you how people deal with desperation. They drink, they blame, they attack, they fail. Or they cope, they try, they go on, even build. You can do all of those things, you're free to. Disco Elysium lets you be a human being. You can even feel - and you will. Pick any emotion and it's in the game. Even frustration because you have to walk all the way to Evrart again.

The Stroll

Disco Elysium isn't perfect. Navigation and backtracking can be tedious - especially because fast travel doesn't always work. Unlocking re-rolls compounds this problem. Switching items for bonuses is fairly limited (hi, The Outer Worlds) but still annoying. I was also unable to finish the fascist traditionalist quest that involves speaking to the local racists nationalists because Gary the Cryptofascist was gone.

Disco Elysium is fine though. And partly it's my fault. The gamer in me wants to succeed those rolls. I did say playing this game is difficult. Disco Elysium is still probably the best game of the 21st century. Or at least in the top 5. And i would recommend it to everyone. Except people who don't like to read. Or aren't curious. Or are obsessive min-maxers (actually, you can min-max as an Art Cop).

TL;DR: Touch a dead guy's dick and shoot a kid.

There are many video games published and labeled as “Mature”. They often feature gratuitous violence, strong language and/or sexually suggestive imagery. However these “Mature” games don’t seem like they are for mature audiences but instead are for testosterone-filled teenagers. Disco Elysium is one of the few games that truly feels like a mature video game. The writing is dense, upsetting and politically charged. It trusts the player’s intelligence to understand concepts like Socialism and Capitalism. The language is vile and offensive, executed with a gritty realistic nuance that doesn’t feel explicitly done for pure shock value.

Instead of mere sentences in other games, Disco Elysium features reams of text. The writing is excellent and never feels monotonous. The Final Cut version adds voice acting to almost every line in the game which makes the experience playing the game that much more enjoyable. The game has a glaring Achilles heel, [as of this review date] it is a technical mess. There are countless bugs ranging from the inability to use certain inventory equipment to incompletable side quests. The game also features frustrating dice roll checks and requires constant micromanaging of equipment. Disco Elysium has clear issues, but fortunately the narrative lifts it from video game mediocrity.

Disco Elysium takes place in Martinaise, a district in the city of Revachol under occupation by a capitalist force known as the Coalition. You play as an amnesiac man who wakes up naked and has absolutely no idea who he is, what is going on or where he is even residing. After collecting himself, he soon meets Kim Kitsuragi. Kim informs you that you are both cops, he is your partner and the two of you are supposed to be investigating a corpse hanging from a tree. From this part onwards, you are free to explore Martinaise and chat with the locals. The crux of the game is to figure out who you are, be the cop that you want to be and figure out the culprit(s) behind the hanging corpse.

The game makes for a memorable first impression with its skill system. The game begins like many western-style RPGs where you can allocate your points towards various attributes like Intellect or Physique. Where Disco Elysium differs is that your skills “talk” to you and “talk” with other skills. It is an ingenious mechanic that represents how your character internalizes his thoughts. As an example, the Electro-Chemistry skill will advise you to take drugs to enhance your senses while the Logic skill will argue that this is not a great idea. The frequency of one skill talking over another is dependent on how you specced your character. I had a character with a lot of Intellect Skills and as a result received a lot of extra dialogue explaining every new term I stumbled across. I would imagine the experience will be completely different speccing in the less vocal, Motorics Skills.

You explore the world of Martinaise from an isometric perspective. The district and its surroundings have a somber painterly quality that hints of a once great town that has seen better days. The player has a health and a morale bar. If either meter completely depletes, the game is over. There is no combat in the game and the health and morale are completely dictated on the choices made. For example choosing to kick a mailbox will reduce health, while telling your superiors that you lost your gun damages morale. Disco Elyisum is one of the few games I’ve played where there are consequences if you exhaust every dialogue option. Some dialog options are locked with White and Red Checks. These checks are dependent on your skills, where a higher skill level will grant a higher chance of success. White Checks are options that can be repeatable if failed, while Red Checks are permanent. Failing a White Check doesn’t mean you can immediately try it again, but instead requires you to unlock the check by improving your skills or revealing a secret dialogue hint. To improve your chances of succeeding these checks, you can temporarily augment your skills by equipping various items and taking drugs.

On paper, these checks are a great way to gate progress and organically encourage the completion of side quests. In practice, these checks completely stagger and ruin the experience. Each time I encountered a check, I would back out of the dialogue, micromanage my equipment to maximize my chances of success, then resume the dialogue. By the end of the game there are over 30 pieces of equipment and it becomes a tedious mess figuring out what combination of hat, shirt and pants to wear to buff the specific skill required. Even worse is that regardless of how high your skill level is, there is always a 3% chance of failure. Maybe I’m very unlucky because I had this scenario happen to me multiple times. One memorable failure was with a Red Check with a 97% chance of success where I failed, died and lost a half hour of progress. Of course save scumming is an option, but that approach ruins the whole point of having dice rolls in the first place since you are supplementing yourself with an unlimited number of rolls.

Another mechanic I was not keen on is the Thought Cabinet. Instead of spending a point to improve your skills you can spend a point to internalize a specific thought. These thoughts often cause a temporary debuff followed by a useful bonus once enough time has passed. The problem is that you do not know the result of the bonus until the thought has been completed; and there are only a limited amount of spaces in the Thought Cabinet. Once full, you can spend points to forget thoughts permanently. So unless you are using a walkthrough, it is possible to waste points spending time on useless/subpar thoughts or thoughts that contradict each other. As an example, I wasted two skill points when I had the Revacholian Nationhood thought which grants a bonus to Physique when drinking alcohol but then gained the Waste Land of Reality thought which negates all bonuses when drinking alcohol.

Disco Elysium does not run well, period. It is a technical mess, has frame stuttering even on high end PCs and has numerous gameplay bugs. Disco Elysium is not some Skyrim-level epic, with numerous moving NPC and physics simulations where jank is expected. There is absolutely no excuse why a game of this scope runs this poorly. Besides the framerate issues, there are numerous loading screens even for very small areas.

Fundamental gameplay mechanics are broken. The camera often gets misaligned and you need to zoom-in and out to recenter it on your character. The act of equipping cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs doesn’t immediately register and you need to unequip and equip it again. Even when the drugs are equipped, clicking on the hand icons is not intuitive because the icons are off center and the game would think that you want to walk to that location instead. Items would sometimes appear invisible in the inventory. The Map would sometimes disappear but reappear after you close and reopen the Map menu. Quick Travel is never explained and only works in certain areas. The game is playable and can be completed but I find it disappointing that even after two years of its release these issues have not been resolved yet.

My last qualm about Disco Elysium is that the writing sometimes gets in its own ass. The writing is esoteric and complex and throws new nouns and phrases at a lightning pace. The game sorely needs a dictionary or an encyclopedia reference. Disco Elysium is the sort of game that has to be played in consecutive sittings or else it becomes easy to lose track of the plot. The game never identifies which quests are important and there are multiple red herrings each with their own extended side-quests and pages of text to read. It is hard to filter out which information is pertinent to the investigation and which information is present purely for world building. I honestly skimmed about 30% of the text because of this. It feels like the developers were trying to flex their writing prowess. For example, there are numerous pages of text and voice acting devoted to explaining the various cockatoos in the world. It reeks of hubris especially when the developers could have used the time to fix the multiple game breaking bugs.

I did not enjoy playing Disco Elysium, yet at the same time do not regret the time I spent with it. Despite all the numerous bugs and troublesome gameplay mechanics, Disco Elysium is a wonderful story about the redemption of a broken man. I have not played any game that has such a fully realized plot, excellent world building and distinctly mature presentation all in one package. I will miss the fun and dumb banters with Kim, the conversations with the sharp witted Evart Claire and the scenes with the vile mouthed Cuno. The narrative is so strong that if given a chance I would read a book version of Disco Elysium because it is THAT good.

Disco Elysium is as good as everybody says it is and that's the biggest compliment I can give. It's a game that consists exclusively of dialogues and the narrative evolving around those and is thus to me more like a classic LucasArts point and click adventure than a RPG. I don't like c-RPGs, but I loved Disco Elysium, just for the record.

In DE you can become a racist violent athlete, a communist art critic, a drug addict lunatic, a bottle collecting hobo, an upright democratic police officer, an alcoholic dark film noir detective, a columbo-type sympathetic moralist with empathy and the game provides you with dialogue answers, alternate quest solutions and clothing equipment to fulfill those roles you chose for yourself. You're very versatile in the role you want to play and never ever I felt that my answers mattered so much. I started to click through dialogues thinking this is what I eventually have to do like in all other RPGs. The first dialogue in the game will punish you big time for this behaviour. Your choice of words is very important. It's the core gameplay and executed brilliantly.

Disco Elysium is the new gold standard of decision driven rpg narrative. Witcher 3's dialogues feel super trivial after playing this. DE is not 100% without pseudo-decisions, but almost every dialogues offers you different ways to solve the situation according to your skill and blocks you from certain solutions if you said the wrong thing without knowing so.

I read everywhere it's an 'open world rpg', which left me a little puzzled. Well okay, if this is open world because you can go anywhere from the start open worlds might not be so bad after all and this is the single best open world I've been in. Every single corner of the world is interesting and worth to explore, thus unlike your usual vast wastelands of grind and emptiness. DE's open world is like it should be: a small map with dense content that changes from time to time.

The political intrigue of the story is absolutely captivating and the world building works out fine - I really wanted to gather information about Martinaise and Revachol and what's the world about. There was some good writing behind it. I heard on 4chan /v/ altright gamer said the game is communist propaganda. Far from true, I found communism to be depicted the worst. All political alignments are depicted as both good and bad from time to time, they really found a balance there.

Joyce Messier for instance is actually a very cool and sympathetic Ayn Rand-like version of right winged libertarianism. The union boss comes over quite bureaucratic and unlikeable on the other hand. There are many grey zones and thoughts that are combinable to make you take your own stand. I love the fact that if you want to stay out of it, you apply for moralism. There is no way of staying neutral, because neutral is status quo.

And of course last but not least the music of Sea Power and the beautiful aquarelle art style polish the whole thing to be one of the most memorable indie games made to this date. Disco Elysium manages to bring back something about role playing games that was essential to them as when they emerged from the pen 'n' paper culture and were transfered to our screens as c-RPGs, something that's what RPGs are made or should be made of at their core: feeling the freedom of creativity to chose and build your own character with their own story and be an actor: play a >role<.

I hope Disco Elysium will change the way that roleplaying games are made in the course of this decade, because to me they have fallen from grace.

Disco Elysium is quite the ambitious little game, taking a broken post-revolutionary city in an alternate world with sci-fi trappings that exercises both verbosity and innovation as much as it can. The mechanics aren't as satisfying as I'd have hoped and the narrative can suffer from serious strains of smugness and defeatism but there's an interesting world to chew on here.

As the player character wakes up, they have an advanced form of amnesia that affects both their personal past and their grip on reality. The main story is solving a murder in the city of Revachol but can involve a number of side quests and things to explore, all more satisfying than the actual plot.

The game features no combat mechanics - instead there are conversation trees and skill checks, which operate on four different stats. These stats often come in the form of voices in the player's head that will interject to offer any observations or extra options - it's very unique and a high point of the game as some of the options can get incredibly wild and interesting. There is also an inventory of thoughts that the player can build upon for possible stat benefits/losses but is less interesting due to the uninteresting failures of most of them. Whether it's the "Homosexual Underground" thought leading to a rejection of deeper sexual expression from the player or the defeatist and sometimes plain stupid responses to the political ideologies that the player can experience, it can be frustrating to deal with.

The political alignment is also a source of frustration - having a reputation as a "political" game, the narrative resorts to ridiculous and at times plain dumb responses when committing to a variety of politics outside the blandest status quo (communism, fascism, moralism, ultraliberalism). It's a defeatist approach that operates within the sentiment of Revachol's current state but it comes off as smug and ineffective satire.

As for the skill checks themselves, the game encourages the player to explore their failures and not try to reroll choices but I was surprised at how boring and disheartening accepting random failures was. I ended up rerolling a bunch more later on when contesting with the fact that I was simply missing out on more fun/interesting parts of the world due to random stat failures.

As for the great parts, though - the world of Disco Elysium is rich in both setting and visual, dealing with the state of islands (isola) in a mysterious Pale, advanced radio communication/technology, high tech armor - there are also a few legitimately intriguing/touching characters amidst quite a few one-dimensional ones meant to backup the satire/humor of the game, whose smugness can be at odds with the honesty the game tries to communicate. The game also looks GORGEOUS, with a painterly aesthetic that brings out even the dullest of browns and grays in a world that feels well lived in. The music sounds pretty hipster-y at times but devotes itself to a suitable ambience when needed.

Without going into spoilers, one might be at odds with Disco Elysium. It might devote itself to a disappointing direction, ridiculing and subverting the player's attempted choices but does so in a world that begs to be explored and understood. I haven't been this torn on a game in awhile, and perhaps that's the best reason to play it.

Critics' Score:

Metacritic: 91/100

Game Informer: 9/10

EDGE: 9/10

Gamespot: 10/10

IGN: 9.6/10

What a fantastic game! Absolutely astonishing! A gaming experience like no other, unique and refreshing. We should demand for more games like these. I can't state how much I loved it; I might have punctured a lung laughing, but that's because I role-played it that way, when I finish up one of these games, I go to wonder: "what could have been different". There's so much to it.

You can tell they have put much attention to the world building, it was insanely detailed. The writers made up fascinating dialogue, and good comedy as well -as you might have guessed I role played it as the absurdist Disco Detective- it was at all moments and incredible mystery, a good detective story and completely hilarious. The art design, kudos to the designers, seldom we get worlds as detailed as this and with such unique visuals. What can I say? I am at loss with words... This game is an instant classic, a must-play, a gaming-wonder, I put 33h 58min into this and it never ceased to be good, it never faltered. Even at moments where I thought, I hadn't anything to do, I always found something interesting and that's incredible gaming. There's only one thing you can do with this... and it is to play it. If you haven't, please do, give it a try.

Score: 96/100

I don’t even know how to get started on Disco Elysium. Someone on Twitter described it as Hunter S. Thompson writing Planescape: Torment, and I don’t think I can do any better. Instead, I’ll just rave about all of my favourite bits, which incidentally have a lot to do with how I like to roleplay in the first place.

Loser cop

So, a little context: in Disco Elysium, you play a detective who has delved so deep into alcohol poisoning he does not remember who he is anymore. His subconscious frequently implies that it’s better this way. Your disco-loving detective is an incredible loser. He has little to no impulse control and loses his shit all the time: one of the first quests is to find your other shoe. There is nothing dignified about him, he is just pure and utter trash.

Exactly how I like it. I love to play losers! Anti-heroes are okay, but damn, losers are where it’s at. I’m somewhat known for picking the least valuable character build: in our Last Airbender game, everyone geared up to play cool benders. I played a farmer. In a lovely one-off where we played a highly capable action team of german spies, I played a piano tuner who’d mistakenly gotten recruited. In our steampunk status game of Victorian nobility, I played a nervous chambermaid who’s afraid of everything. You get the idea. Discovering how to make your loser character useful is a fascinating challenge.

Many people roleplay to escape into a kind of power fantasy of control and snappy one-liners, and that’s fine. But I love to enter a fictional world where the escapades, many failures and occasional small triumphs of utter losers are lovingly explored. It feels like the place where both hilarious comedy and exquisite drama are available to you. A subtle place, where heroics are managing to put your coat on correctly, and remembering someone’s name. Fuck saving the world and getting the girl.

Items of clothing increase your stats so that at any given point of the game you look like a mismatched hobo. Oh, the other thing that can increase your stats temporarily is drugs, so good luck trying to get sober and get your life back on track, detective! Oh, and both your health and morale can descend quite rapidly as you are very skilled at both hurting and demoralizing yourself at ANY given moment.

As you can imagine, I am having a wonderful time with our main character and his inability to keep it together. In one of my favourite moments, I endeavoured to cut a lock with bolt cutters. I failed, and my trusty companion helpfully pointed out that I should probably cut the wire, not the lock itself. I tried and failed again. The screen went black as my morale plummeted into the ground like a comet, and I was so overwhelmed by failing in front of my esteemed companion that it made me want to stop living altogether.

That’s big mood, y’all.

Play to lose: failure is interesting

Failures in Disco Elysium happen a lot, and it’s always interesting. In tabletop RPG world, this was only invented a few years ago with Apocalypse World, so it’s great to see it implemented here in crpgs.

Failures will open up new conversations, have unexpectedly funny things happen, and usually finds cool story ways to make you better at your skill check so you can retake it. My absolute favorite scene in the game happened only due to my crippling inability to sing karaoke.

Even when you get better, you also get worse. The game has a ton of traits for you to level up in. Wonderful traits, crazy traits. Shivers makes you better at tuning into the city. Inland Empire gives you psychic delusions … or premonitions? Conceptualisation makes you better at making associations. Electrochemistry makes you better at finding and taking drugs. Composure makes you cooler and gives you better fashion sense.

But the better you get at something, the more it locks you in. Every trait has a downside at the higher levels. A high Composure might makes you a judgemental fashion critic and refuse to do anything that would get dirt on your clothes. Shivers makes you completely paranoid and jittery. You can get better, but you’ll never be good.

Play to flow: internalizing thoughts

Due to our lovable protagonist’s lack of memory and impulse control, he is all over the place. This means you can be too! In LARPS, they call that Play to flow and I really enjoy playing with that style. A single throwaway phrase can throw my entire game into a new direction.

And that’s exactly what our guy does all game. There’s even a mechanic for it. When our detective encounters new thoughts that intrigue him, he can internalize them. This means pondering them for a substantial amount of in-game time. When that time is up, he is done processing the thought and has adopted it as his own. Each one conveniently comes with mechanic bonus (or penalty).

The game is full of socio-economic theories, hedonistic thoughts, or just stray bits of lore that get in your head and send you on late night wikipedia binges. There’s thoughts that make you question your sexuality, your (lack of) sobriety, or the advantages of becoming a feminist or a fascist. It’s all there, and even once you have processed these, you can still change your mind and adopt a different world view. It’s amazing!

Deep relationships: Precinct 57’s finest

Disco Elysium doesn’t reward you with increasing awesomeness. It rewards you with wild story payoffs and beautiful NPC interactions. Which is exactly what we want, and the things we most love to remember from old school RPGs. Like, the time Mordin sang that song in Mass Effect 2, or when my one true love Alistair and me beheaded this guy together. Or the plots twists of Yoshimo in Baldur’s Gate and every mind blowing plot-fuck in Final Fantasy VII. You know what I’m talking about.

Most questlines end in a banger of a story scene (the church and the karaoke are notable examples) that leave you reeling or laughing deliriously at the screen. But a lot of the player involvement and reward comes from one particular relationship.

Kim Kitsuragi is your new partner for the duration of this case from hell. Kim knows exactly how much of a wreck you are, but he also knows that the world is a rough place and that being a cop eats you up and spits you back out. Throughout the game, he becomes the rock of normalcy that you cling to. Kim is patient, lenient and supports you nearly unconditionally. Kim makes you want to stop drinking. Kim makes you want to be a good cop. The moment where he finally addresses you as “detective” is enough to make a grown man cry. Kim is redemption. He’s the companion cube squared.

At some point, I had sent Kim off to process a body - a procedure that would keep him busy for the whole day. Exploring on my own, I found a Very Traumatic Thing that made it very clear how deep my detective had sunk. I decided then and there that I would reload my game and lose hours of progress, because I didn’t want him to face said thing by himself.

What else can I say? The writing is incredible. The artwork expressively maudlin. It’s too clever for its own good, but in a way that can still appeal to everyone. It’s very hard to find fault in Disco Elysium. It is simply hard core.

This is the best video game writing I've ever experienced, probably up there with some of the best novels I've read. The beauty of the story is that it's not some standard fantasy-driven wish fulfillment adventure. Despite the general fantastical mood, Disco Elysium tells a story about real life, ugly themes like addiction, poverty, politics, and obsession. The RPG elements are very personal and inwardly focused in the mindscape of Harry, and while it may not seem exciting at first, it's quite an emotional rollercoaster. The setting, rendered with gorgeous impressionistic art, feels like a real lived-in city both hated and loved by its residents. I enjoyed every bit of it.

It did need some work in the editing department. I noticed a lot of typos as the game went on and there was one bug after a certain dream sequence near the end. If you need help there, press numbers to select invisible dialogue options and press space to end it. Then you can save and reload. I think the devs will eventually fix these things in the future, and then the game would be 100% perfect.