Disco Elysium

Looking for something even weirder than Torment and with even more character customization options? Disco Elysium is RPG of the year. Hell, maybe even the decade.

Stayin' alive.

An intense role-playing odyssey, despite some overstuffed writing, Disco Elysium is an experience that has to be played to be believed.

But those are the complaints of a pedant next to my larger criticisms, and those larger criticisms don't take away the good things Disco Elysium has achieved. It does deserve to be compared to yer Planescapes, yer Fallouts, even if it hasn't stepped totally out from their long shadows. It's a great, bleak rumination on the failings of humanity on a macro and micro level. But not without hope. A masterpiece, but flawed, and proof positive that if ZA/UM can do flawed masterpiece for their first outing, they might already be chipping away the flaws in time for their next.

The most important thing about Disco Elysium, an oddly titled role-playing game that came out last month for PC, is that it’s funny. Set in a beautifully ugly world of smudged watercolors and throbbing noir music, Disco Elysium appears at first to be the type of game that might take itself too seriously. It seems nihilistic, dropping not-so-subtle messages that its writers believe everything sucks. Fascists bombed the city. The union leaders are corrupt. The cops are jerks. But there’s a warmth to the game that reveals itself over time, largely thanks to its fantastic sense of humor. Following...

Disco Elysium is perhaps one of the best role-playing games of all time, and I don't say that lightly. I haven't played a game that has been able to so masterfully flex to my actions as well as ZA/UM's freshman outing. The writing is sharp, the characters genuine, and the choices possess true stakes.

[Review updated] A depraved cop investigates a degenerate industrial world, where racism is ubiquitous, the specter of communism fuels class struggles, and the good and evil are meaningless constructs. Disco Elysium, this year's most ambitious RPG

A cop adventure inspired by classic RPGs.

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is an absolute triumph. The narrative and dialogue, which is already wonderfully compelling on its own, has been given a massive boost thanks to the excellent voice acting introduced for the Final Cut. The gameplay features a host of branching paths for you to explore, and while the slow, methodical approach may turn a few people off, this is nevertheless one of the most well-told stories in any medium from the last few years. The performance issues at the time of writing slightly took the shine off things — and we hope they're ironed out soon via updates — but eve...

This unique RPG highlights everything that goes on inside our heads.

I’m not playing as a good or a bad person — I’m playing a man with real talents and deep flaws, and I feel all the more connected to my version of the character as a result. I am a rock star, after all.

I’ve got no real complaints about Disco Elysium. I do think it shouldn’t say you’re overwriting a save file when making a new one, and it’d be nice if the developers pointed out Quick Saves are an option. But I didn’t encounter any major glitches or bugs. ZA/UM has managed to capture the soul of classic CRPGs, the passion of an indie project, and the detailed polish of AAA gaming. Unless you’re criminally averse to reading text, there’s no reason not to play Disco Elysium.