The Absurdity of Life – Disco Elysium (The Final Cut) (Video Game Review)

“Disco Elysium – The Final Cut is a groundbreaking role playing game. You’re a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.” – Steam Synopsis

Disco Elysium is nothing shy of a wonderful work of art that within the overall story of a police murder investigation will take you on a 20+ hour journey that will make you think about life, politics, and humanity as a whole. Since this game was released back in 2019, I have heard nothing but the highest of praises for it and with this review; I want to praise it just as much. It’s not flawless by any means, the last third or so drags just a bit and there are some clarity issues when it comes to where you can walk and certain pathways and also some minor bugs still, but it made me feel, it made me think, and I walk away from this experience believing it’s just that. An experience. One that enthralled me during this first play through and one that will surely captivate me for many, many more in the future.

This is the first crpg that I have ever played. My interest in the genre has only become a thing because of Baldur’s Gate 3, which I still have to play, but that spiraled into me finding this youtuber (Mortismal Gaming) who mainly reviews crpgs and my interest has grown from there. Funnily enough, I’ve had this game on steam since some sale many years ago during the pandemic and I could never bring myself to play it because it just wasn’t for me yet. I think that’s the biggest thing about this game, whether you’re a fan of the genre or not, you have to be in the mood to play this game. There are so many options, side quest, dialogue, and thought-provoking moments wrapped into a solid 20 hour play trough which can easily be a lot longer or a bit shorter depending on how much you do and how fast you read. This game requires you to meet it on its terms and if you do, then you’ll be in for one of the best experiences money can buy. With a very unique water color-esque art style that makes this experience even more unique.

Even though this game is going on 6 years old now, I would absolutely hate to spoil the story for anyone as it is treat to experience. The set up is interesting. I love the approach to character creation. We all play as the drunken amnesiac cop, but before we load in, we can build his stats, and the main stats break down into subcategories. The amount that you allocate into the main stats determines what your caps are going to be for the subcategories for the entire game. Add onto that stat buffs and debuffs from clothing and items you can get throughout the world and those same things can be acquired by another set of traits called internalizations that are exactly their name sake. You can spend points to internalize things and once the time has passed for you to gain it, you can gain a special stat that can completely open up and close off dialogue options as the game progresses and also buff and debuff those sub stats. The role playing elements here are absolutely astounding and I love how much you can shape your character and also the characters and world around you. This is the most robust role playing game that I’ve ever played. The replayability is through the roof.

The story is amazing, I loved it. I’m a sucker for crime dramas and murder mysteries. The main plot is great, so is the setting. This world is similar enough to ours, while being unique enough that parallels can very easily be drawn to real-world situations, politics, beliefs and identities and that’s the point. This game has so much commentary on the world’s political, social, and economic situation. It allows you to interact with it as little or as much as you want, but ultimately, you can never escape it, just like in real life. Maybe it’s the way I played through it, doing a lot of side content, exhausting dialogue with people, but I really like that despite the situation the people of Revachol find themselves in, there’s this comradery. These people stick together in a very complex political situation that affects them all. There are people and powers on both sides who desire profit and power over anything and if that means starting a war to get it or flooding the streets with violence and drugs then so be it but the actual people still look out for each other and I think that’s true to real life as well. It’s a beautiful thing and I adore how every piece of content in this game ties in together throughout the story and in the end. The ending I got legitimately almost brought me to tears. It’s almost a shame that it’s missable but that’s also what makes this game great. The decisions you make and how you interact with the world do matter.

The characters are lovely. The voice acting is amazing and I just adore how much you can learn about them and yourself by interacting with them throughout the same day and the following days. My favorite being the Lieutenant Kitsuragi. I loved how during my play through early on you could see glimpses of what’s deeper than just the stoic cop tasked with working with the sad drunk detective and gaining his trust throughout the story and also learning more of his ideology was such a treat. Plus, his character design is awesome. He may be one of my favorite characters in fiction. While he’s my favorite, I pretty much loved every character and character interaction in this game. I point to strong writing and dialogue making these characters feel real and just as complex as people are in real life and how you chose to approach them and what you believe and say to them will shape how they respond and view you. It’s brilliantly done.

So yeah, this game is beautiful. It almost hurts how real everything is. Despite all your efforts and whether the case is solved in the end, lives will be changed, but the class war will forever wage on. Political and socioeconomic issues will continue to be in the forefront while the people affected continue to suffer more and more, but even with that being the case, my play though taught me that people will still band together for each other. However misguided or even wrong we may be, in the end we can come together. At the very end of the game, you get questioned on the case and your memory loss and when asked about the latter, there are theories proposed as to why you lost your memory. There was one of the handful of options that really stuck out to me. It’s the theory that this world had just become too overbearing. It was easier to forget it all than live in it and once living in it became hard again that presumably you’d do it again. This game is heavy, and often times focuses on the absurdity of it all. The world is hard. It’s hard to live in, it’s hard to survive in. It’s absurd. It’s life though, and even in these characters’ darkest moments and at their worst you can find that glimpse of something that makes them happy that makes everything worth it.

Disco Elysium – 10/10

Notes – I’m definately going to replay this game many more times. I know there’s so much I haven’t seen or done yet and that makes me excited. It’s a shame all the messiness that has come in aftermath of this game’s release for the studio regarding the rights and ownership. I hope that gets resolved correctly.