Disco Elysium: The Future of Games looks Bleak, in a Good way
The underdog spirit and creative intentions of the indie video game collective ZA/UM are resoundingly clear and on full display in the game Disco Elysium, which rewrites how we experience narrative in Role-Playing-Games and pushes the boundaries of what the interactivity of video games can do for modern storytelling. A perfect mess of watercolor expressionism and dark humor, the game pierces through the fog like the clarion call of Revochol’s trumpets on a hungover morning. Disco Elysium is excellent because of its heady, exhilarating, and immersive narrative, its innovative and unique gameplay mechanics and approach to sprawling choices and dialogue, its comical yet brooding characters, and even its user interface. These are all ingredients that went into creating an intoxicating and charming brew, and the interactivity of videogames may have been the only cup able to hold such a concoction together for us to gulp down.
I know that’s a big claim to put into a review of a game, so I want to make it as succinct as I can how I judge any artform whether it be classic art, modern cinema, or in this case videogames. These criteria are as follows; whether I can understand and interpret the creative intentions behind the game and the context around the artist or team that created the game, how the aesthetics (the art style, animations, music etc.) help reinforce the games world and its themes, and finally and most importantly, how it actually feels to play the game.
In Disco Elysium the player is tasked with investigating a freakish and peculiar murder and finds out what happened by interacting with the somber, snarky citizens of a small district in Revachol called Martinaise and its odd underbelly. However, the detective himself is not only an alcoholic but also an amnesiac with utterly no clue who he is and how he got to Revachol. That sounds like the intro to a typical albeit strange detective story, but Disco Elysium is far, far from typical.
In Disco Elysium you must balance out the main characters stats and his ability to make different choices in the scenarios you find yourself in by not only completing quests and investigating evidence around the murder but by — get this — engaging and having conversations with the detective’s own thoughts and inner voices in a sort of mental landscape called the “Thought Cabinet”. Yes, the disparate thoughts, feelings, funny asides, and psychological constructs in the brain of the detective are actual characters in their own right with their own motives and effects on the way the game progresses. The player has the option to choose which thoughts to make stronger or more prominent from the beginning of the game. All with little to no combat at all.
As all worlds are, particularly a world this fully realized and bizarre, the world of Disco Elysium wasn’t built alone nor without a struggle. Not only did it take ZA/UM a total of 5 years to complete Disco Elysium, but the source material and essentially main “lore” of the game was created farther than that by Lead Designer and Writer Robert Kurvitz in his novel, “Sacred and Terrible Air”. All of the Dungeons and Dragons-playing, strange world-building, Eastern Europe-wandering, and ridiculous ambition Robert and his peers tapped into trying to create a “world to end all worlds” (as he would put it) would pay off when making the setting for the game (Nelson, 2019). Particularly because Robert and the small band of dropouts that started the collective -which included the lead writer Helen Lindpere and less than a dozen of their comrades- had no prior game development experience before creating Disco Elysium. Self-identifying as more of a cultural movement than just a small studio, ZA/UM recognized video games as their medium and their place to contribute to contemporary art in a way that combines multiple disciplines for a richer experience, while still parodying elitism. They wanted to fly in the face of “dumbing things down” for wider appeal and show that we can make games that can reach a wider audience while still being nerds geeking out on connections between movements like Dadaism and modern RPGs with intricate and extensive lore (Nelson, 2019). As a high school dropout myself, it’s incredibly inspiring and empowering to see something of this magnitude created by people with similar artistic inspirations and backgrounds.
In our current era of gaming, most blockbuster games have all the resources available to make good experiences; big budgets rivaling even the biggest mainstream movie productions, large studios with loads of writers, programmers, designers and artists involved, and established audiences and player bases. Unfortunately, it can also be said that most block buster games nowadays have remarkably less engaging content and storytelling and rely on flashy effects and gaming tropes in place of actual good gameplay, despite having so much creative, financial, and marketing support. Instead, they rely on a litany of guns and weapons, hypersexualized female characters, repetitive gameplay, and vapid, rote storytelling beats and choices. With considerably fewer resources and publicity, ZA/UM was able to create a game experience that surpasses its less risky and inspiring peers in both commercial success and cultural impact, a feat that can’t be understated in this gaming climate.
Let’s not forget about how well the character designs and aesthetics of Disco Elysium put you in its world. It's normal to think a detective game would present itself with a grimy setting accompanied by a curmudgeonly main character, all things which Disco Elysium does provide. However, its unique blend of muddy tones and splashy colors make the character animations and environments stand out and have their own personality. Its eye-catching palettes can keep the players' attention and keep the conversations (I.E the reading) interesting and fluid. The artistic choices made by ZA/UM are not just paying lip service to a culture obsessed with visually stimulating and crisp graphics, they set a standard for games that wear their unique and varied visual influences on their sleeve.
Every single character in Martinaise (as well as the district itself) is not only illustriously and impeccably designed and animated in this edgy and colorful style, but come with something tremendously funny, interesting, terrifying, thought-provoking, or moving to say. It’s amazing to behold given the sheer variety of characters; from disgruntled veterans, gardeners that are sharper than they appear to be, disembodied spirits, corrupt union leaders, bratty neighborhood kids, and even your own astute and patient partner.
You can tell how much these artistic choices flesh out the world in its little details, like for example all the detritus and drunken-night leavings you find in the detective’s hotel room in the beginning of the game that you can interact with. This helps paint the picture of an amnesic investigator who may go too hard with the drink before any dialogue does. You find this same attention to detail throughout Martinaise; derelict shopping carts sit outside of pawn shops with heaps of trash and salvaged materials strewn about, intricate and winding tattoos are inked into a nationalist brute’s arms to emphasize his sentinel-like presence, the grotesque bruises and welts on a rapidly decomposing body hanging from a tree, and the kids who are throwing rocks AT said body, showcase the backwater nihilism of a seedy district like Martinaise. The art style has a peculiar, surreal level of detail that feels like walking into your favorite Twin Peaks episode after ingesting Ketamine and loving it. Who would’ve known that could even be something to want and enjoy, and in a videogame no less?
The choices and how you engage with characters are definitely a standout part of Disco Elysium. For example, you can sell unused and found items at a pawn shop in Martinaise. When you speak to the pawnshop owner you can do the expected: purchase and sell items. However, by choosing different dialogue choices when you engage with the pawnshop owner, combined with your own stats and previous choices, you could end up with new items, and interesting quips on the pawnshop owner's backstory. This seems simple at first until your dialogue choices lead you to have an hour-long conversation with the pawnshop owner about cryptids, the side effects of certain psychotropic drugs, the history of the city, small trivia about some of the inhabitants of Martinaise, and even knew clues, quests, and missions to investigate. This is just one example of what seems to be thousands of choices you can make that make your own playthrough (and multiple playthroughs) one of a kind.
It also allows for people who normally would be turned off by playing these types of games to not have to deal with overwhelming and intimidating lore and writing. In Disco Elysium you are not forced to opt into the savagery approach most RPGs of the like bake in without an afterthought, meaning you don’t have to have highly exaggerated physical attributes like endurance and dexterity to just slash away at anything that lives for pools of experience points. Given how so much of Disco Elysium is centered around how your character responds to certain situations and how they think about these situations when they arise, you’re approaching problems and bits of the story differently while still engaging in the signature RPG gameplay loops of progression and character building. Robert explains the “Thought cabinet” feature and how it’s so different, stating that “Successful skill checks aren’t often about besting someone physically, but instead unlock heroic levels of empathy, intuition, and creativity.” (Morton 2019)
You can talk yourself out of, into, around, through, sideways, and above any situation and it’s a wild ride to do so. Here the words and the interactions are more exhilarating to use than a normal sword, gun, or magic spell. This level of interactivity with not only other characters in the story but the main character's own thoughts and their effects on the environment simply can’t be replicated in any medium other than video games currently. Films, TV shows, paintings, and even music don’t allow the observer to influence much of the art that’s already presented. Social media kind of comes close on the interactivity note, but still doesn’t match the ability to immerse players in a narrative embedded in a world in this way. Funny enough, even social media-inspired Disco Elysium’s presentation to the player. Who would have thought Twitter’s user interface could’ve inspired something like the incredible dialogue and jokes that parade throughout Disco Elysium minute by minute (Gamestop, 2020). And yet, it’s brilliantly executed in an exciting and easy-to-use way that is both parts hilarious and mind-shattering in its implications for games in the future.
Helen Lindpere, the lead writer for Disco Elysium mentions how interesting it is to watch how video games are going to impact culture, based on their interactive choices. However, she believes that’s only possible if video game writing can lean into the incredible level of interactivity and choice that they give the player, and not just try to imitate films. (qt. in Regan, 2020) With over a million words of text that seem to fly by without you realizing how much you actually have read already, Disco Elysium is a testament to her point.
There’s always a rare moment in an artform’s development and history where an artist or a group of artists are able to present their perspective and imagination via that artform so boldly and so vibrantly, that it showcases what has, what is, and what will arise out of that specific artform. Videogames are no different than any other art in this regard. Even with a shallow search on the internet one could come across numerous “greatest of all time” lists featuring games that are extremely deserving of the title as they survive the tests of design, hype, and multiple playthroughs. Whether you’re a casual player or an enthusiast, you can usually feel it when you are playing this type of game because of the effect it has on you while you’re engaging with it in real-time. While simultaneously having a blast, you start noticing how the disparate parts of what makes up this wonderful art are fundamentally changing your perspectives, and in such a unique and novel way that it feels like a doorway has been opened to a new world of creative expression. Yes, there are video games that can do this.
Disco Elysium is one of them.
Works Cited:
Regan, Tom. “Disco Elysium: How A Few Friends from Estonia Created 2019’s Most Original Game”. Fandomdotcom. 23rd, April, 2020. https://www.fandom.com/articles/disco-elysium-interview
Nelson, Samantha. “Why the Creator of Disco Elysium Hasn’t Read the Reviews, and What’s Next for the IP”. escapistmagazine. 1st, November, 2019. https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/why-the-creator-of-disco-elysium-hasnt-read-the-reviews-and-whats-next-for-the-ip/
Morton, Laura. “ Disco Elysium interview — I don’t want to be this kind of animal anymore”. v427dotcom. 6th, November 2019. https://www.vg247.com/2019/11/06/disco-elysium-intrusive-thoughts/
“The Feature That Almost Sank Disco Elysium”. Gamespot. 2020. https://youtu.be/9X0-W5erEXw?t=141
