Disco Elysium: The Final Cut - A heartfelt masterpiece, but not for everyone...

There are times when you live, nothing forebodes trouble, as a book, movie, game, etc. falls on your head, that life can be divided into "before" and "after". Disco Elysium is a game far from new, but it's illegal not to know about it. Disco Elysium is a piece of work that leaves a lasting impression, a searing residue and a culture shock. But first things first...

The protagonist of Disco Elysium resembles a rattling mix of Bruce Robertson from the novel Shit by Irvine Welsh and Leonard Shelby from the movie Memento directed by Christopher Nolan. From the former, Garrier Du Bois has adopted a propensity for inadequate behavior, and from the latter, amnesia.

Garrier Dubau is not working alone. He is accompanied by Lieutenant Kim Kutsuragi, the local Vanson. Kim is just as reserved and pedantic and occasionally calms Garrier's ardor when he starts doing all sorts of unhealthy stuff.

All the action takes place in the fictional town of Revachol against the backdrop of an equally fictional post-war world. And the word "Fictional" in this context does not mean that the author in this way has saved himself from accidental coincidence with real personalities and people. The word "fictional" means that Revashol is as if in an otherworldly dimension with its own geography, drama, elaborate history and even its own laws of physics. At the same time, the world in Disco Elysium is written almost according to Orwellian canons: here you have regimes, class inequality, pale tones against the background of a world exhausted by war...

It's no coincidence that I didn't write a word about the plot or the game as a whole. Disco Elysium is not an ordinary game, so we should talk about it properly. In fact, is it a game?

Unlucky in prose, lucky in gamedev...

The very birth of Disco Elysium is another ironic life twist... There once was an Estonian writer named Robert Kurvits. When Robert was building his world, he relied heavily on Dungeons & Dragons, and in general loved and respected board games.

Kurwitz wrote the book "The Sacred and Terrible Flavor", the work received positive reviews, but the book sold only about 1000 copies. Robert was extremely dissatisfied with the result, his writing ambition and ambition remained unsatisfied. Kurwitz, as befits any creative personality, took the book's failure as a personal insult, resigned his post as editor, and succumbed to alcoholism and mental anguish.

In 2016, Kurwitz switched fields and founded a video game development studio, ZA/UM.

The writer could never let go of the situation with the failure of his book, so the events in the company's first game took place in the fictional world of Sacred and Terrible Fragrance, Kurwitz's book.

Kurwitz took the reins and acted as the writer and game designer of that very first game. And that game, as you may have guessed by now, was that very Disco Elysium.

The game was released back in 2019, collected a lot of awards, and IGN dubbed Disco Elysium the game of the year. But another problem was still on the agenda: Kurwitz had gotten pretty handy with his novel, which affected the text in Disco Elysium as well. The final text of the game was too literary when translated into English. To put it crudely, it was impossible to play Disco Elysium with the English level lower than C1, and only well-read native speakers of the language were able to fully understand all the intricate metaphors and the creative idea of the creator.

However, this did not stop Kurwitz's once unfulfilled dreams from coming true. Later he became famous, and his writing talent was now admired by thousands of people.

The game, but only formally

Nominally, Disco Elysium is an RPG with no combat system. Nominally, Disco Elysium is a semi-open world with a non-linear walkthrough. Nominally, Disco Elysium is an indie game, but in fact Disco Elysium is an interactive detective and dramatic comedy all in one.

The game begins with a hackneyed book cliché: our protagonist, Garrier Dubois, wakes up in an unnatural position on the floor in an unknown living room. Garrier remembers nothing: neither how he got here, nor why his surroundings are such a mess. Nor does our protagonist remember that his name is Garrier Dubois. All he remembers is that he seems to be a detective. But Garrier had a little too much alcohol, started to rage, and then got drunk literally to the point of insanity. This battle with the green serpent he lost...

In the case of Disco Elysium, amnesia is not only a convenient way to start the story without prescribing the protagonist's character, but also an underlying root game mechanic. Our protagonist has only one innate trait, he is a mentally ill alcoholic. But what kind of person Garrier will be, and whether he will accept his former name or give it up, is up to the player.

A protagonist may be a calculating manipulator or an erudite philosopher, a lady's man or an aggressive sadist, or our protagonist at the beginning of the game may try to remove the tie from the fan over his head, jump up and die of a heart attack, or Garrier may get drunk, sleep near the gutter and throw feces at passers-by... Everything is possible. By the way, the latter option is one of the game's endings.

Throughout the story the player will be exploring the world together with the protagonist, searching for answers to questions, and simply searching for their role in life. The case, for which the once diligent detective arrived at the motel, is just a pretext for the story. Further events will take Garrier through the slums of Revachol, introducing local colorful characters, even forcing him to form his political views. The player collects the "new" Garrier Dubois by bits and pieces, forming his personality practically from scratch. However, it is not that simple: the thoughts of the protagonist are a separate playable character, at times they get out of control, compete and argue with each other.

Sometimes Disco Elysium does not hesitate to put the player in disadvantageous situations, reminding us that the game is not in fact a game. It is not enough to pump up the intellect to the maximum and rely only on the power of reason. Our protagonist will be given a task, for example, to clean up the dishes, which will generate in him an internal conflict, saying, "How so? I'm so smart, and I'm doing the dishes! That's not for me!"

For each such miscalculation, the protagonist suffers damage, either physical or mental. The health system is more a reminder of the variability of character than an expression of the real condition: having sat on an uncomfortable chair, you got -1 to your mental health. What?!

Disco Elysium's gameplay mechanics serve only three purposes: self-irony, replayability, and any kind of complexity. Otherwise, it's an interactive novel with a non-linear narrative. Even the mechanics of the impact of pumping some traits (empathy, resilience, persuasion) can easily be hacked uncomplicated download the latest preservation: failing a test in the dialogue - booted, failed - booted. And so until you get to the proverbial 8% of successful answers.

The mechanics of dressing up the main character - the same fiction. Things just give a bonus to some characteristics and help pass the dialog boxes faster. When you pick up Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, you have to understand at once: you picked up the book, not the game. The developers have only slightly reduced the load on the players' imagination with visual and acoustic accompaniment...

Is Disco Elysium: The Final Cut worth buying?

If both video games and prose are on your list of interests, Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is a must-read. There's no reason to ignore it if you're good with books. For unobtrusive leisure, Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is a little less suitable. This game should be felt, penetrated by it, breathed by it. But by no means treat it as entertainment for the evening.