I’ve been sitting on playing Disco Elysium for the longest time, wondering, is it worth playing? Something about experiencing its grim, downtrodden, deeply flawed character in a war-scarred limbo of a city felt too intimidating for me at times. By lacking traditional gameplay, it asks you to trust its storytelling from the opening scene. It presents you with difficult-to-process feelings at times and mingles philosophy with daily life, which can make it feel like a tougher game to finish than Dark Souls. But what took me, actually finishing the game, to realize is that Disco Elysium, in its complicated and nuanced messiness, is a deeply impactful and hopeful piece of art.
And the sign for that is right there on the title of the game.
A man with nothing left to lose
You wake up in a trashed hotel room, in your underwear, not even remembering your own name. You look around, and you slowly piece together what – or who – might have happened. You, the player, can quickly surmise that the person you’re playing as destroyed the room in a drunken stupor. But that’s where all the easy conclusions stop. Why, when, how, and the biggest question of them all, what caused this oblivious attack to this room truly escape you and the character.
Oh, and did I mention that your character succeeds in drinking so much he deleted even the concept of existence from his mind?
Yeah, baby. That’s how hardcore Disco Elysium goes, even from the first few minutes. And yet, it’s easily one of the most beautiful journeys I’ve ever experienced as a gamer.
Disco Elysium, in its gloomy, post-war world, hooks you in even when it isn’t entertaining in the traditional sense of a video game. There’s no action, no complex RPG mechanics, no cruel boss fights; it’s a work of art, blending philosophy into the everyday life of its amazingly written (both non- and playable) characters.
Going deeper into the story definitely veers dangerously close to spoiler territory. So suffice it to say that you’ll be playing as an amnesic detective who is trying to solve a murder by doing all the wrong things right, a man who literally has nothing left to lose.
To remember or not to remember?
What makes this game so unique is how it starts with literally zero knowledge about its world and make you really think about who you are and what you’re dealing with. The protagonist of the story is a man who managed to drink himself into oblivion. Literally. No, I’m not kidding. And while playing the game (spoiler alert), I thought it was just a narrative device, and that at some point, the character would get it back. But when that didn’t happen, and every new choice came with a moral and philosophical implication, I started to realize that this man was given a clean slate; a blank canvas to actually redefine his life through his deep grief (end of spoiler alert).
And so I ask you, have you ever wondered how you would perceive the world if you woke up one morning and knew nothing about everything? Who would you become if you were faced with a lack of understanding so complete that even concepts like money, politics, and geography suddenly made no sense to you?
Would you trust your instincts to guide you back to a familiar version of yourself? Or would you resist your primal desires, your only guideposts to the truth of who you are, to come out of that oblivion reborn?
Disco Elysium gives a go at asking the question and giving a very satisfying answer in the form of a game. Maybe you don’t realize it, but every day you’re faced with a plethora of questions that slowly build your character. Are you gonna help an elder cross the road? Are you gonna smoke a cigarette and drink a glass of scotch? Are you gonna try to speak to a regular lady perusing the books outside a bookstore?
In all these small ways, you show your character to the world around you and slowly build the edicts of your philosophy. Disco Elysium does exactly that. Every interaction is impactful and insightful, a chance for the main character to learn something new about the world, and inherently yourself. Not just that, but Revachol, the district of the city where the game is taking place, is stuck in a limbo of a post-war reality between two conflicting philosophies.
I would love to analyze the game’s political landscape further, but getting into this game with as little information as possible makes the impact harder-hitting.
And the reward for pushing through is hope, baby
And to tie everything up, Disco Elysium taught me that life, even at its lowest, can be fun and hopeful. And to me, this is the part that is still the hardest to explain. There are moments where the main character seems to regress into a state of almost maddening bliss. Peculiar dialog options, ultra-stylish clothes that don’t seem to fit the character, and moments that make the world glisten like a disco ball. Without wanting to overanalyze in an attempt to allow you to enjoy the game yourself, it makes the main character feel like a living person in a way that few games can.
You can dress as you want, say the thing that will make you memorable, even if at the time the people around you will roll their eyes at you, and be human by choosing to follow your urges. And that’s something that’s easy to forget when you feel like everything is going wrong in your life.
Disco, in the game title, has a double meaning. It’s part of the character’s past (again, no spoilers!), but at the same time, I also think it’s the moments of pure romance and disco-ball light hitting your face when something magical happens spontaneously. It’s the motes of happiness you’ll never forget, no matter how hard you try to drink yourself outside reality.
All that’s to say that if you have an empty spot in your backlog, and you’re searching for video games that leave you fuller than you were before, then give Disco Elysium a go. And don’t get intimidated by its bleak and rough world. Remember that the reward for pushing through, is hope, baby.
“In the dark times, should the stars also go out?”