Disco Elysium in review: Secrets, Thoughts, and Failures Abound

by Sam Allen

“There is nothing. Only warm, primordial blackness. Your conscience ferments in it — no larger than a single grain of malt. You don't have to do anything anymore. Ever. Never ever. An inordinate amount of time passes. It is utterly void of struggle. No ex-wives are contained within it…"

Thus begins the opening dreamscape of the 2019 detective-mystery video game Disco Elysium. You begin the game with near-complete amnesia, the lingering consequences of alcoholism weighing down your mind and body. Nearly everything is a secret at first; the year and date, the country you’re in, the concept of money, or even your own name.

Happily for you, you have friends; a collection of twenty-four voices clamoring for dominance in your head. These are your skills, and over time, they decode the walls for you. Doors break down, suspects open up, cold crime scenes glow back to life around you with the use of your ‘Visual Calculus’ skill. Even the city itself comes to life, whispering secrets in your ear through the raspy voice of your ‘Shivers.’ As you talk to new people and travel around the environment, your skills undergo a series of active and positive checks, allowing new dialog options, which in turn guide you to side quests and discoveries.

You do have a human partner as well, Lt. Kim Kitsuragi, fellow detective from a rival police precinct. In the early game he helps explain the world, the city, and the murder case you’re meant to be solving together, and over the course of the game he tries his best to save you from your worst failures and impulses. Gradually, you uncover the world, piecing the puzzle together into an intricate story full of slow-motion cut scenes, flashes of revelation, and fits of misery. Fourth wall-breaking abounds, including arguments between the various voices and a psychedelic confrontation between you and your ex-wife (who may also be the goddess of neoliberalism?) If all goes well, you, Kim, and your 24 companions can solve the murder, resolve a labor dispute, and save dozens or hundreds of additional lives, making you a hero in the eyes of your employers and friends.

Or… not. Depending on the skills you prioritize, the dialog options you choose, and your luck with the game’s dice, you may stumble, mutter, and wreck your way through the game’s intricate detective-mystery plot, falling off of walls, getting shot in the legs, alienating your partner and generally embarrassing yourself. The game allows you to fumble to the finish line this way if you prefer. All it does is make the second journey through that much different than the first. The brilliance of the system is that the skills you put points into directly determine the paths open to you and the voices you hear loudest. Rather than combat or puzzles, the mystery unfolds through a series of challenges, many (though not all) of which can be attempted multiple times. It’s always okay to try again, and towards the end of the game, some of your skills will even shatter the fourth wall, refusing to fail certain important checks.

Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of Disco Elysium are the ‘Thoughts,’ themes that you can turn into skills by contemplating them for a certain amount of in-game time. You pick these up from a number of sources throughout the game and may choose a limited number to focus on over a playthrough. Contemplating your political ideology of choice, whether liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, fascism, or communism, gives you some psychological healing whenever you defend it in conversation. You can also choose to have a sexuality crisis for eight hours through a thought called “Homo-Sexual Underground.” This grants you no benefit except finding out Lt. Kitsuragi’s sexuality, which, though secret, is not pertinent to the murder case.

Beyond the thoughts and the main mystery, secrets are the blood in the veins of Disco Elysium’s lifelike worldbuilding. An unremarkable shipping container may contain an unexpected boon; a secret passage in the back of a haunted bookshop leads to the ruins of a failed enterprise. A truck driver’s cargo is not what it seems, a priceless piece of gear is in the care of a small child, and an eccentric biologist hunts a fantastical creature that may even exist. Clues that could save you days of work are hidden in the first few conversations you have upon waking up, but your amnesiac-drunkard narrator is usually incapable of spotting them. Even a humble wall calls to have its secret potential unlocked by the right work of art. The things you find or do not find, the side quests and thoughts you choose to complete, and the voices you prefer to listen to determine the particular character of your journey through the mystery.