🕺 Disco Elysium – A Second Opinion From Dr. Britt 🕺 @studioZAUM #IndieGames #GameDev

My GF colleague Transvaal covered Disco Elysium last year and was quite besotted with it. It’s a game that has been on my radar for far too long, and recently I was lucky enough to be able to dive in.

In terms of world-building, atmospherics, music, presentation and – especially – the writing, Disco Elysium gets very high marks. ✅

The composers of the soundtrack - British Sea Power - irritate me with just their name alone, and I half-expected the music to be as tedious and unimaginative as their band name, but they’ve actually conjured up a soundtrack that not only sits well with the overall presentation but actually enhances the experience of exploring Revachol and its broken structures – with equally fractured denizens. ✅

Whilst the soundtrack and visuals are impressive, it’s the writing that is the star of the show, for me. The rich voice acting of the many characters that you meet, and their complex ideologies, hidden motives and murky characteristics feel real, and the dialogue sets each person apart – not to mention the inner thoughts of your character, as he bumbles his way around the city, embarrassing and impressing his stoic colleague in equal measure. ⭐

There were moments in which I was doubled-up with laughter, actually crying at how sharply written – and delivered – the writing was, hands down some of the best I’ve ever encountered in a video game. ✅

Not all is perfect, though – and for me, Disco Elysium gets weaker the further you progress into the game, with there being an especially noticeable lull in the 2-3 hours before the finale – when it does pick up again. ❌

The issues are tied with Disco Elysium being – quite frankly – a video game. The best writing in the world can’t cover up clunky movement, getting stuck on invisible obstacles, to-ing-and-fro-ing between characters at opposite ends of the game map, and a bizarrely under-explained map and menu system.

These are minor, but relatively constant niggles, that are dwarfed by the interwoven, and impressive but invisible threads that make up the hidden triggers and moving parts underneath the engine.

As your choices and progression are made up of the emotions, character traits and unlocked memories that you unlock, it means that you can get to various points whereby you are assigned daily quests that cannot be completed because you’ve not triggered some invisible event or stood in a specific spot.

In no game is it fun to traipse around relatively small locations, clicking on everyone and everything in a bid to make some sort of progress – this also ties into the dialogue trees. Yes, you can make choices to develop your own character in the protagonist…but due to the inherent constraints of the RPG genre here, you feel the need to exhaust every possible conversation as they randomly award XP and can be the key to moving the game forward. 

Disco Elysium is one of the best games I’ve played in recent years, but I’m really keen to see the next game from the developer. I mean, if their first game is this strong, with extremely fixable, niggling issues – I feel pretty confident that their next game will be an absolute masterpiece. ✅

This world could very easily be cross-media, I’d happily watch an animated show or read a graphic novel based on the characters, locations and lore introduced here.

After playing it, I can absolutely understand the love it has rightfully accrued from fans. I just need the t-shirt and vinyl OST now… 👕💿