Ahead of the release of Disco Elysium next week, developer Studio Za/um shared some insight into the sheer size of its game: playthroughs should average 60 hours, with completionists looking at 90 hours. It consists of a million words. Impressive stuff, especially as a first project for a small indie developer, and even more impressive is that, after roughly seven hours with the preview build, I’ve seen much of quality in all that quantity.
Disco Elysium is a top-down RPG inspired by pen and paper roleplaying games, but instead of a high fantasy setting, you find yourself as a detective in a grimy, downtrodden harbour district in the city of Revachol, sometime in the 50s. It begins in classic noir fashion: you find yourself in the skin of a man who’s lost all of his memories, fighting your way back to the world of the living after a likely alcohol-induced heart attack. A whole gaggle of voices try to convince you to just not bother with it all, and it takes a short while to figure out that it’s my own brain talking to me, all the different parts of my personality chiming in.
It’s overwhelming, but it’s this approach that gives Disco Elysium its flair. You’re basically in charge of your character’s entire brain. Almost all actions require a stat check, powered by a dice throw. Where other games only have checks for rudimentary skill categories such as perception and strength, here you dig deeper – your fashion-forwardness is as much of a skill as your endurance, logic and empathy. There’s 24 skills in total across four categories describing your physical and mental state. I failed my first check when I tried to get the detective to accept the ruined crater he once called his face in the mirror.
Source: Eurogamer Disco Elysium is an RPG of overwhelming proportions