Skip to main content


Started playing Disco Elysium by British studio ZA/UM and after about 4 hours I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I absolutely love the inner monologue with all the different aspects of one's personality and the tailored experience the initial stats value provide through successful automatic checks and the interjection they trigger. The passage of time also is an interesting mechanic.

On the other I feel like all the political topics are just for show. Several political philosophy terms are thrown around in conversations with NPCs, but they either fizzle into a vague apolitical stance or it puts the main character who, like the player, doesn't have a good grasp on the political history of the game world, on the spot to express unnuanced opinions through seemingly forced dialogues options.

What about you? Have you played or finished or abandoned Disco Elysium?

#videogames #videogame #review
This entry was edited (3 years ago)
And of course as a native French speaker the faux-CrΓ©ole used in the game is bothering me because I spent way too much time in school trying to achieve language correctness that any typo in a French word is upsetting to me now.
This entry was edited (3 years ago)
can you expand on your "just for show" and "forced dialog options"? I haven't played, but I watched extensively on twitch.

I didn't really notice anything like this, but maybe I wasn't looking very hard.
I can understand your frustration coming from a RPG point of view, where you want to transform the character into any number of possibilities and you lack the knowledge to do so, however I feel that a person with Lt. Du Bois' self-destructive inclinations would not conform very strongly to any of the existing ideologies in the game, or even take them too seriously. Therefore to me seems in character for Harry to fake it until you make it - ie, until you understand the concepts.
Yeah, it does make sense in retrospect, after all he was ready to go with a random name he just made up on the spot when he couldn't remember his, so why not outlandish political stances?
⇧