#Game Review - Disco Elysium: A Storm of Video Game Literature Revolution
IDisco Elysium burst onto the scene in 2019 as an anomaly in the video game world. Developed by ZA/UM, a low-budget studio from Estonia—a former Soviet republic now based in London—the game sparked a multimedia interactive revolution in "video game literary writing" through its traditional yet outdated CRPG gameplay and its vast, profound textual content.
When I played Disco Elysium, I had just started working in Habby's in-house development team. During my free time, I played Dungeons & Dragons with colleagues, experiencing TRPG gameplay firsthand. At the same time, I was undergoing a complex intellectual shift between the humanities' focus on social critique and justice, and the market-driven spirit emphasizing needs and competition. As a student, I ran drama workshops for migrant communities, gaining insight into how the survival conditions of grassroots labor groups reflect structural social issues. Now, facing the pressures of survival, I gradually learned to navigate the competitive logic of an atomized society and reconstruct my ideals under the influence of material realities. The experience of playing Disco Elysium strangely resonated with my confusion about contemporary values and beliefs. Through the investigation of a hanging worker’s mysterious death, the game unravels various ideological reflections rooted in the social reality of the city of Revachol.
The protagonist recovers lost memories through encounters with people of various classes and identities, and every player choice and dialogue shapes the political system within the protagonist’s mind. The main storyline is not clearly defined amid the intricately woven literary narration; instead, it constructs a world of Elysium constantly invaded and destroyed by violent or gentle, free or orderly political ideals. As the mystery unfolds, I couldn’t help but wonder: is communism the only path for Revachol, once the center of world revolution? I vividly remember the scene when the union leader first met me and tried to bribe me by throwing money in my face. Fascists and racists dream invincibly amid the carnival of capital—haven’t centrist moralists ever shouted hypocritical slogans? Haven’t left-wing unions used radical support as tools for power and ambition? In this desperate and complex “post-Cold War” city, no one’s ideals are absolutely noble, and no one’s blood is completely cleansed—just like the reality we experience. Disco Elysium made me feel the precarious, uncontrollable thoughts and souls of a self-degrading “dark” era. Yet, its literary narration and stylized visuals still convey a moving emotional aesthetic: when the protagonist meets his ex-wife, he recalls times when justice, kindness, and beauty called to him even in his downfall; when he finally locks eyes with a giant ancient stick insect by the pond, the future ideal—even if dim—exists eternally in meaning.
Though based on traditional DND & CRPG gameplay, the game features unique innovations. First, without combat systems or tangible “enemies,” all mechanics and gameplay are integrated into the “Thought Cabinet”—a mental world where players “battle” through internal conflicts and sensory interactions with the game world. Ingeniously, the achievement system influenced by numerical values is designed as an ideological/political system, and character skills abandon combat-related terms like “attack” and “defense,” replacing them with “erudition,” “reaction speed,” “empathy,” and “disguise ability,” emphasizing growth in intellectual and spiritual dimensions and indirectly restoring the psychological experience in a literary context. Although a CRPG, the game retains the open-ended, infinitely interactive nature of traditional tabletop games, creating a computational system simulating human thought, communication, and behavior patterns. Under low technical costs, it achieves a cybernetic communication system of symbiotic, organic interaction between individuals and others—an innovative subversion of tabletop gameplay in the multimedia era.
Secondly, the game enriches its content by wrapping existing mechanics in reasonable concepts from its worldview. For example, the concept of the “Greylands” refers to the gray matter covering the continents of Elysium, where all laws cease to function. This is essentially the unexplored map areas in the game, akin to oceans in the real world. However, in the narrative, this concept becomes an expanding crisis, a disintegrating order, and an unbearable reality—similar to Lacan’s concept of the Real. Other similar settings include the “Innocents” and “Disco Elysium music.”
Disco Elysium carries the narrative function of literature, maintaining interactive reading as the player’s primary role. Elements reminiscent of Italo Calvino’s imaginative historical retrospection in Invisible Cities or Anthony Horowitz’s protagonist searching for deliberately “lost” memories in Magpie Murders can be found in the game’s text. On the other hand, the game also offers electronic media technology and cyber aesthetics beyond literature, creating an experience closer to deep spiritual contemplation. The extreme abstraction of textual language, oil painting–style art, and video game thinking collide intensely, producing an uncanny, enigmatic sensation. It is simultaneously a game, an electronic novel, and a pioneering art piece bearing sharp social realities, leaving behind highly controversial value.
