Console Corner: Review of Disco Elysium

STOP! If you normally come to my blog to read book reviews, do not skip this. Yes, Disco Elysium is a video game. But be aware, it's predominantly a narrative experience. The fact it is perhaps the best-written video game narrative ever should at least help you consider reading this review. (If not that, then maybe the killer title?)

Putting it lightly, the video game medium is not famed for its maturity. Of course every medium has its share of juvenile content, but video games may be the worst offender. Hand-eye coordination and onscreen interactions are what make the medium tick with aarrative almost always taking a back seat. Super Mario Bros features an Italian plumber trying to save a princess who has been kidnapped by a dinosaur protected by turtle ducks... Not quite Pulitzer material. But there are a few games out there that treat the person playing like they have an adult brain who has given thought to the layers of existence. Disco Elysium (2019) is absolutely one of them.

The structure of Disco Elysium is that of a tabletop rpg: players explore the game's world and periodically need to pass skill checks to progress. In Disco, they take on the role of a detective who wakes in a hotel room from a drunken stupor. After figuring out where his other shoe is, he walks outside to discover a corpse hanging from a tree limb. A fellow detective named Kim introduces himself, and together you go around the town, collecting clues and objects, accomplishing tasks, testing theories, figuring out how certain things fit together, and slowly get to grips with who the killer is. Pretty straight-forward, yes? Disco Elysium is 10x more.

Tabletop rpg may be the framework, but the facade, roof, bell tower, awnings, louvers, gargoyles—everything—is existentialism at its finest. I would compare it to Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground for its spleen, Camus' The Stranger for the distance it has to reality, and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas for its dark, self-inflicting humor and absurdity. You see, the detective you play is not only an amnesiac alcoholic, but also a man trying to sort himself out as much as the murder. Players are treated to magnificent dialogue, both with in-game characters, as well as internal monologue. The lizard brain gives its two cents as much as the limbic system, all of which crave the same animal cravings we do and have the same existential questions, doubts, and concerns. And spinning this further, you can drink beer and pop speed pills in this game. Twisted through with a comedic self-awareness, it's truly a unique experience.

Disco Elysium is an adult game. Not because of the sex, drugs, and disco (though those things do play a part), rather because of the level of understanding of life one needs to have to appreciate the monologues, dialogues, behaviors, addictions, and mindsets. This is no Italian plumber bopping turtle ducks on the head. Rather, there is a world-weary man doing his best to understand this thing we call existence, knowing he'll never hold all the cards to explain it, and is still faced with the task of sorting out how a fellow human came to be killed.

Beyond the personal nature of “gameplay”, Disco Elysium likewise features a strong layer of social commentary. Eastern Europe is never stated as the setting (everything is fictitious), but it's clear that the game's writers are coming to grips with former Soviet (communist) occupation, and the fallout of that time period as their world attempts to move forward without the economic foundation to guarantee success. Communism's legacy is throughout the game, something which in turn informs so many of the characters' bouts with existence, NOC encounters, as well as the dark absurdity feeding the motives for one man's murder.

Two things wrong with Disco Elysium. Well, one thing badly wrong (forgive the syntax) and the other possibly wrong. On PS4 the controls are atrocious. I feel I spent a quarter of my play experience getting the cursor to highlight what I wanted it to highlight, and if I wasn't fumbling with that, then I was running around bumping into invisible walls trying to steer my detective hero toward a desired destination. I would love to say this is “thematic”, that your detective's unresponsive and awkward movements are the result of a few too many. But I, unfortunately, believe it's shitty game controls.

The part that's possibly wrong are the dice/skill checks. On many occasions I tried dice checks with odds less than 10%, and several times I passed them. On several occasions I failed dice checks where the odds were greater than 80%. Fair enough. With a hint of skepticism in my heart I could accept all of this if it weren't for the times I save scummed to pass a check. Once the odds to pass the test were 72%. I tried it six times in a row and failed every time. Something fishy about that—possibly wrong.

In the end, Disco Elysium is a phenomenal experience save for controls. And I use the word “experience” intentionally. There is button pushing, moving characters around on screen, figuring out puzzles, etc. But the game's primary driver is the manner in which the player interacts with the world, develops their character, and explores the dark regions of both the psyche and society. A dark game, it takes Camus' ultimate question in life: Does a person kill themselves or stick their middle finger up at life and live despite all the sit? and puts it into a disco noir mystery unlike anything the gaming industry has ever seen. Slather on heavy Eastern European undertones of post-Soviet existence and you've got an existential banger. If you read books and don't play games, consider making this an exception. I promise it's better written than 90% of books out there. And do play on PC. I've read the controls are better...