From the very first second of wakefulness I was following a trail of my own unravelling; like a hand grenades big moment being reversed back in time. With no memory of who I was, facedown on a cheap hotel carpet, backside in the air and legs akimbo: mistakes had clearly been made. Rum doings were afoot, something had been broken and not just the window which was now allowing the bracing sea air to attack my naked form.

After risking certain death retrieving my tie from a ceiling fan I slowly gathered the rest of my clothes and stumbled into the hotel lobby. Thoughts moved through my cranium like cheap glue and yet surprisingly my most basic primal drives were still fully operational. I propositioned the attractive young woman outside my room to have sex with me, why not I thought. She laughed and as she walked away suggested I may regret my proposal: she was correct.

Rising Damp

Disco Elysium is an isometric RPG from developers ZA/UM, set in the fictional coastal city of Revachol. Specifically the district of Marinaise, which has fallen into social and economic ruin. This is a debut game for the talented folks at ZA/UM and a project that has been born from their impressive writing history. This title has also been fashioned on a backdrop of adversity, in fact when the project first drew breath the space they were working in was being rented from squatters. The area that the game covers isn’t huge and even when the story opens up on day three, you are restricted to a relatively small city block and a portion of the coastal estuary. In other games that Disco Elysium has been compared to, the player would travel to a far greater selection of locations, but don’t let that fool you into thinking this is a shallow experience.

Like a long fallen log on a forest floor, you just need to kick it over to see life is still teaming within this rotting carcass of concrete and plaster. Given this is a fictional setting there is much to learn about the history of the city and the conflict that caused so much damaged to the architecture around you. The many buildings you explore look just about ready to collapse, this is in part due to artillery damage that has since received makeshift repairs to hold it all together. Overall there is a desperate feel to this place, the edge of the world on a rainy day and in some cases, it could almost pass for a post-apocalyptic scene from Fallout. This aesthetic, while less than cheery, is packed with exquisite detail in every pixel of the handcrafted environments.

Oh, one more thing ma’am…

As you are suffering from some kind of substance-induced amnesia everything from your history, personality and even your name is not within your grasp. This is a role-playing game but there are certain aspects of your character that are set in stone, such as what you look like and the chaos you caused before the game starts. Once you start investigating your immediate surroundings a few things become clear. You are a cop who has seen his best days, you have been assigned a homicide case in this area of the city and you arrived a few days previous. Luckily you have been assigned a partner to assist you in finding out who murdered the man still swinging by the neck behind the hotel you are staying. With your badge and gun evidently missing you don’t make the best first impression on your partner Kim, who is both professional and honourable. One of the most pride gouging aspects of this relationship is that both he and the various NPCs you must speak to are in effect helping you remember the fuckery you committed while drunk or high on narcotics. This doesn’t exactly put you in a great position to interrogate witnesses but there are plenty of interesting ways to gain the upper hand. If anything my character reminded me of Columbo, underestimated in every episode by the killer until they would inevitably be outsmarted by the scruffy (but brilliant) lieutenant. So far we have all the hallmarks of a good RPG but there is something about Disco Elysium that sets it apart from the pack.

Split Personality 

Even before you open your eyes you are treated to an audience with your inner voices. The observations of the ancient reptilian brain rasps at your ears like gravel under your feet. The concept of inner dialogue isn’t a new one in gaming but Disco Elysium takes this to the next level. When setting out you can choose from three predetermined character builds (or build one from scratch) from the primary attributes: Intellect, Psyche, Physique and Motorics. Each one of these is divided into six sub-skills which make up what kind of personality dwells within your limbic brain. As you traverse conversations and tick off objectives you will gain experience, which in turn levels you up and allows you to put skill points into any of these twenty-four skills. It is worth noting that the more (or less) skill you have with the base skill determines how many upgrade slots are available to you with the sub-skills, which makes sense. I also love that maxing out a certain skill can start to give negative outcomes, so if you are smart you will seek a good balance. 

There is no realtime or turn-based combat in this adventure and all actions are based on a skill check: specifically with a double dice roll. There are two kinds of skill check, white can be tried again at a later date and red which are a one-shot deal. The chance of success is given to you as a percentage and of course, this is mostly based on your proficiency with that particular skill. What is interesting is that these checks can also be influenced by a number of additional factors which are included under the check. For example, I remember in one situation I had been rude to a shop owner before trying to steal a book, as a result, she was keeping an eye on me which in turn reduced my chance of stealing it. Conversely, this system can work in your favour and often when you have done your due diligence by exploring a subject, it can mean a better chance of success.

The most interesting and unique aspect of this system by far is that all these skills actually speak to you in the game. This can often be hilarious as you are effectively having a three-way conversation between the various voices in your head and an actual NPC in front of you. The encyclopaedia skill, for example, will chirp up with facts about the topic at hand, while rhetoric is very good at breaking down people’s statements into what they actually mean (I like rhetoric). How often these inner voices interject will depend on how many skill points to have in that skill, so in this way, you have a direct leash on which aspects of your personality become dominant. 

Death by Disco

There is a full day and night cycle working under the hood and ticks over when you are interacting with the environment or talking to characters. Reading a book or sitting on a bench will allow you to pass some time manually which is a nice touch. This is helpful because the time of day can be important to certain quests and activities. Venturing back out into the town once you’ve ditched Kim at the hotel is also an option if you fancy feeding your darker demons. You will start each day with a full bar of health and moral counters, how many will be linked to your skill allocation. There are many ways to lose a counter and when you run out of either the game will end (with a newspaper clipping detailing your failure in the harshest terms). There are a few ways to raise these again such as devouring meds or making good choices in your various interactions. 

There is something I will say to any gamer who is thinking of playing Disco Elysium, this is an experience that will require a lot of reading. It just so happens that this is some of the best writing we have seen in a video game, maybe ever. So even if you are not someone who is normally turned on by a good book, this might be the game to convert you. It is not just that the writing is good, it is also surprising, even shocking on occasion. Everything is on the table here, from illicit drugs, salacious encounters, depraved murders and a whole raft of social commentary. Like a ferret on LSD, you never know which way the game will dart to next and often leaves you racing to keep up. This game doesn’t shy away from political issues, hell on occasion it straps you in and beat you across the head with them.

My only criticism of the game’s writing is that on occasion a conversation can overstay its welcome. When a dialogue tree opens you will have what I would describe as an overarching conversational backboard from which all other talking points flow. You will see this system in most games of this genre, but in Disco Elysium there can be more dialogue in one of these stems than the entire backboard combined. This can be both surprising but as I have said, occasionally a bit too heavy for my taste. I will say these extended conversations never wane in writing quality, it is just the marathon reading sessions can be very demanding.

Seeds of a personality

Another fantastically unique way in which this game lets you grow your character is with the thoughts system. As you play the game many events can make a thought occur to you and these manifest themselves by appearing in your thought cabinet. A thought can be placed into an open slot (three at first but more can be unlocked) and here you will mull it over as you play the game. Once a thought has matured it will become a permanent aspect of your psyche, with either stat modifiers or even dialogue options. One of my favourites is where you effectively convince yourself you are a cop rockstar which can lead to some hilarious one-liners. Removing thoughts from your character costs precious skill points but my advice is to just go with the flow because even negative outcomes can lead to a more interesting experience.

This being an RPG there are, of course, plenty of items to acquire along your travels. A trusty flashlight will be essential for picking through those dust encrusted interiors that haven't seen a human being for decades. On an aesthetic level, this also looks awesome and really can ratchet up the tension when searching new locations in the darkness. Acquiring a map from the book shop will give you a beautifully realised view of the city and various other items will allow you to try different approaches to obstacles. Cloths are also a fairly big deal in this equation because each offers various stat buffs and debuffs, so keeping well-stocked wardrobe will give you some flexibility when a situation demands it.

Is it PC?

As I have mentioned, the visuals on offer here are gorgeous hand-drawn backdrops. When I first saw this game at EGX Birmingham the stunning artwork was what jumped out at me. Smoke will rise from aged chimney stacks, shadows creep longer as the sun sets and there is enough going on here to make it all mesh together. In terms of character animation, this can range from excellent to poor, with the latter being attached to more general walking and climbing animations. In situations where there has been a unique movement put into the game, these are mostly well delivered, like lurching from a tall building to retrieve your jacket. One scene saw me leaping backwards while flipping the bird at a bartender, colliding with a lady in a wheelchair and damaging a vertebrae in my neck. These moments are fantastic and this particular one had me in tears with laughter. 

I found the music to be mostly excellent with some very atmospheric pieces that meld with what is happening on the screen. I would have liked a little more variety in the music that plays out in the open areas but this is a really minor gripe. To record voice work for every line of dialogue in this game would have taken years, so the team have done what I think is a very smart compromise. Every person you engage with will have spoken lines, which establish the character and gives you a feel for what they sound like. Then once the dialogue tree expands the voiceover drops away. The voice actors in this game do a marvellous job and deliver their lines with so much personality. There is the occasional character who is just ok but mostly this is some fantastic voice work. As for sound effects, I’d say the quality is good with a few effects that seem out of place or at least like equipment of varying quality was used to record them. Overall the game runs very well with only a few stutters here and there. I did have a few crashes but am almost certain that is an issue I am currently having with games running on Unity. I also noticed a few UI issues where text from one box would obscure tabs in another but this is a very minor issue and I am sure will be refined at some point in the future.

Conclusion 

There are some things that really shouldn’t factor into your critical opinion of a game but in this case, I don’t care. The team at ZA/UM made a very good impression on me when I met them last year. Seeing a group of individuals so driven and energised by their creation is a wonderful thing to behold. There is no agenda here, no greedy publisher waiting in the wings to add aggressive monetisation and certainly no visions of grandeur. This team is unbelievable humble considering the raw talent on display and this alone makes me very excited for what they decide to create next.

Disco Elysium is a love letter to the RPGs of old and yet has this beautiful, almost timeless visual style. These adventures stay with you well after the credits have rolled and this is why titles like Planescape Torment are so cherished by older gamers. This is the best RPG I have played for many years and one which has a dizzying amount of replay value when you consider how changing your character can drastically alter the path you can cut through the games deep underbelly. If you like this genre of game this is an essential purchase and if not, well maybe this it’s time to broaden your horizons.

I would like to say thank you to the developers at Disco Elysium for always responding to questions and also the folk over at Dead Good Media for supplying a review code. I hope you enjoyed reading my review of Disco Elysium on PC and if you want to keep up to date with new content please follow me on Twitter @riggedforepic