Back in the 1980s, when video games were just starting to find their feet, there was a marked divide between people who enjoyed arcade-style games and those who liked what were, at the time, described as capital-A Adventures.
“Adventures”, as they were defined at the time, actually encompassed what we know today as text adventures, role-playing games and even some strategic titles — to put it more simply, the term “Adventure” tended to describe games that 1) were aimed at a slightly older audience and 2) tended to require a certain amount of imagination in order to get the best out of them.
We won’t get into the outright snobbery some Adventure fans tended to exhibit back in the day right now — that’s a discussion for a whole other day, I think — but suffice to say for now that Disco Elysium is the first game I’ve played in a very long time that feels like a real successor to those early days of capital-A Adventures. Particularly those of the text-based variety. So let’s take a closer look.
In Disco Elysium, you take on the role of an alcoholic cop who has just woken up after what appears to be the mother of all benders. You can’t remember who you are, your hostel room is completely trashed, your necktie appears to be talking to you and, perhaps worst of all, you see to have a peculiar facial expression permanently affixed to your face that will almost certainly cause people to take you somewhat less than seriously.
What then follows is a story of you struggling to piece together the case you’re supposed to be working on, as well as at least some of the mystery surrounding your own identity. You’re assisted in this task by Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, a responsible officer from another precinct who was assigned to work with you on the case: a murder investigation.
It seems that about a week ago, a man was lynched, hung up on the tree behind the hostel in which you’re staying. Initially it’s not at all clear why it took so long for anyone to report the hanging body, but as you investigate, it becomes clear that there are some rather volatile politics at play. There’s a strike underway at the docks, and it looks like the man may have been hung up on the tree as an example of sorts — but to whom, and to say what? All that is for you to investigate.
I’ll refrain from saying too much more about the overall plot for now because Disco Elysium is all plot. Unlike most of today’s role-playing games — even those that veer hard into the “CRPG” side of things, like this one does — Disco Elysium features no combat. Or at least, in my 30+ hour playthrough, there was only one sequence in which I drew and fired my gun, and that was not handled as a “combat” sequence as such.
Instead, Disco Elysium primarily unfolds through some extraordinarily well-written text — and, in the slightly later The Final Cut release, full voice acting. In a similar fashion to classic “Infinity Engine” CRPGs from Black Isle, BioWare and Interplay, much of the game unfolds through dialogue trees as you interact with people and things, and this is where the capital-A Adventure comparisons come from. Because although there is a visual element to the game and some animations of your character performing various actions, the vast majority of the real game happens in text (and voice) alone.
Probably the most interesting thing about Disco Elysium as an RPG is how your skills fit into things, because it’s one of the most tabletop-inspired systems I’ve seen. Harry has four major statistics: intelligence, psyche, physical and motorics, and these are each split into several skills each. One skill can be picked as a “Signature Skill” at the start of the game, which means it starts with a slight bonus, but Harry can learn and develop new skills over the course of the game, with their maximum levels determined by a combination of his base statistics and some other factors.
As you interact with people and things around the game world, Disco Elysium is almost constantly performing passive “skill checks” in the background, comparing your current skill level and any modifiers plus an assumed “average roll” on two six-sided dice (a value of 6) to a “difficulty” rating. If you pass the skill check — and sometimes if you fail — the skill in question will actually address you directly in dialogue, providing further insights into a situation, in a similar way to how a human Game Master in a tabletop session might use a character’s statistics and skills to provide additional information in an encounter.
These little asides from your skills can have a major impact on how you perceive each scene. For example, with points in Empathy, you might be better at sussing out how people are feeling or their motivations to do various things. Perception might enable you to notice nervous tics or inconsistencies in the way they speak. And there are more esoteric skills, too: Drama enables you to determine whether or not people are lying, for example, Inland Empire allows you to use your imagination to extrapolate theories — including obviously batshit crazy ones — and Esprit de Corps allows you to understand “cop culture” and perhaps theorise about what other members of your precinct might be getting up to while you are busy investigating.
In The Final Cut, all of these skills are voiced by the same narrator, further adding to the impression of playing with a human Game Master, but each have their own distinct way of addressing you. The Drama skill constantly speaks to you as if they are a courtier serving their king — you — for example, while the Authority skill makes assertive declarations about what you should do next in order to demonstrate… well, your authority.
This is a fascinating way to reflect the inner turmoil of Disco Elysium’s protagonist, particularly when his skills actively start arguing with one another or offering conflicting advice. At various junctures, you will have to make a decision about which skill you are going to trust in a particular situation, and pleasingly, there are rarely any “wrong answers” — just different ways to approach a situation. The indecision that springs up as a result of this conflicting “advice” from within is a surprisingly potent representation of what it is like to live with mental health issues of varying degrees of severity — particularly those in the anxious and depressive regions.
These passive skill checks are complemented by active skill checks for particularly difficult situations, including both physical and mental tasks. These function a little differently: they still have a base difficulty value, which you are required to attain or exceed, but there’s some random variance provided by virtually rolling two six-sided dice. A pair of sixes always succeeds and a pair of ones always fails, but in between it’s a matter of whether or not the total of your skill value, any modifiers and the dice roll meets the target.
What’s interesting about these active checks is that the modifiers can come about as a result of your previous actions elsewhere in the game. For example, if you’re trying to convince a particular person of something, obtaining some information from somewhere that will be of interest to the person in question will provide a positive modifier; at the same time, negative modifiers can also apply, such as your partner being present, thereby making things awkward while you attempt to ask a woman out.
What’s even better about the active checks is that for the most part, failing them doesn’t mean you can’t progress. There are multiple solutions to most problems in the game, and it’s very rare you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’ve “built” the protagonist incorrectly in order to proceed. Some skill checks can be retried if you gain enough experience to put another point in the relevant skill or if you acquire a new modifier to the situation, while others are one-time affairs that you can only try once — often with permanent consequences.
And for once, Disco Elysium is one of those games where you won’t want to save scum if something goes wrong — because things going wrong is part of the experience. That’s why the skill checks are there in the first place: to reflect the different ways you can approach the various situations, and to show that, as a deeply, deeply flawed protagonist, you are not a superhero. Indeed, with certain character builds, you’ll find yourself going through a lot of the game with just a single “hit point” of health, meaning your character is pretty much constantly on the verge of a fatal heart attack. Indeed, it’s possible to die in the opening moments of the game while simply trying to get dressed with a raging hangover — though once you’re properly into the game, there are plenty of opportunities to acquire healing items that can prevent you keeling over dead, even with just 1HP.
Disco Elysium’s text is evocative and compelling. It draws you into the experience just like classic capital-A Adventures, particularly those that veer heavily into the “interactive fiction” area. The voice acting in The Final Cut is fantastic, too, featuring a variety of regional and international accents and dialects to reflect the cultural and ideological melting pot — some might say powder keg — that is the game’s main setting. Of particular note is Lenval Brown’s sterling work as the game’s narrator; supposedly he had never had an acting role prior to Disco Elysium, but he does an absolutely amazing job with the 350,000 words he was presented with, his staccato delivery providing a distinctive, slightly “otherworldly” feel to the experience.
Because part of Disco Elysium’s appeal is that its world is simultaneously familiar and relatable, but also filled with unusual, strange things. To say too much about the latter aspect in particular would be to spoil some of the sense of discovery of the game, but in the former case you’ll find yourself coming into contact with a variety of different ideologies over the course of the game, and you can choose to plant your flag with any of them as you progress, with each having their own associated “Vision Quest” to complete.
This isn’t just for show, either; demonstrating your loyalty for a particular ideologies can open doors and close others, and characters will comment on the way you behave, whether it’s consistent or erratic. The sheer amount of text in the game means that the game is amazingly responsive to almost anything you do, including the order in which you do things, and the fact that this is all voiced in The Final Cut is even more impressive.
Disco Elysium deals with some heavy themes and can be hard going at times, but it’s an immensely worthwhile journey to take. It’s proof if proof were needed — which I don’t think it is at this point — that you don’t need overly flashy graphics or cinematic direction to make a good, compelling, story-centric game. In many ways, the heavily text-based nature of Disco Elysium helps the reactive nature of the script feel far more responsive and personal to you than any beautifully directed cinematic cutscenes.
Hmm. Maybe those folks who were snobby about the superiority of capital-A Adventures back in the early days actually had a point…?
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