Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

I’ve always had difficult playing characters that have less than desirable personalities or ethical codes. For example, it was difficult to get through parts of Gabriel Knight due to his sexual harassment of his employee. Many games now give the player a broad leash to be as noble or dickish as they want to be. Disco Elysium is the worst of both worlds, giving you control over Harry Du Bois, a detective whose recently demonstrated a lot of gross behavior. Then you get to decide if you want that to continue or to go for a redemption arc. Despite this predicament, I couldn’t get enough of this game, at least for one playthrough.

Zaum managed to create the ultimate hybrid of adventure game and tabletop RPG. Prior to the game starting, you get to choose a character makeup, giving yourself strengths or weaknesses in the areas of intelligence, psyche, physical, and motorics. Each of these groupings have several, more specific attributes (24 in all), such as reaction speed, endurance, empathy, and logic. These attributes come into play for nearly every action you take. More on that in a minute.

As the game begins, you are narrated to (in your sleep) by the different parts of your body, including your ancient reptilian brain and the limbic system. Fighting through heavy intoxication, your body struggles between the desire to wake up or fall asleep forever (which is driven by a terrible heartbreak in Harry’s past). You can make choices as to how to respond, but ultimately you will wake up regardless. You see Harry, struggling to rise in only his underwear. His tie is on the ceiling fan, empty liquor bottles are everywhere, and one of his shoes is missing.


Now, one of the first things many players will do is to examine the fan and attempt to snatch their tie. One of the options is turning on the light, which will immediately damage Harry’s health due to his massive hangover. Should you have skimped on endurance in your character creation, Harry will immediately (and hilariously) die. Lest you worry about making it through this game alive, it is generally very difficult to get killed as long as you don’t do anything stupid. Harry has both a health bar and a morale bar, and should either go to zero, the game will end. There are many ways to get items (drugs) to improve both, and some positive game actions will heal you as well. The game will even give you several seconds to use one of your drugs to heal yourself should you make a fatal mistake.

Outside of that, the game is constantly rolling dice. Most of the time, it’s in the background. There is near constant narration coming from Harry’s mind, either providing background information or giving him advice on what to do or say. But it will only be triggered should the dice rolls be higher than the points in the various attributes. Some narrated thoughts are almost automatic, and some are almost impossible, with a lot in between. Regardless, you won’t know if a dice roll failed. Outside of dice rolls, thought bubbles will also appear above Henry at times, which you have the option to activate to hear what his inner monologue is saying.


More interesting is the choices you get to make while rolling dice. At various points during puzzle-solving or conversations, you will get the opportunity to roll two six-sided dice, while being told what percentage chance you have of rolling a winner. Say you’re flirting with Klaasje, another woman at the hotel. You have the option of trying to woo her, and based on your skill points, it may be difficult or easy. What makes Disco Elysium so wonderful is that regardless of whether you succeed or fail, the result is entertaining. Often, failing a task is funnier and opens up alternative options down the road. Some of these opportunities, like flirting with Klaasje, are considered “red checks” and can be tried only once. Most are “white checks” which can be tried again at a later time, either by raising your skill points in the necessary area or completing another task. Regardless of your attributes, rolling two sixes is always a success and rolling snake eyes is always a fail.

Eventually, you’ll coerce Harry downstairs where he can either talk to or dodge the verklempt hotel manager. The one person you can’t avoid is your new partner, Kim Kitsuragi, sent by another district to help you in the murder investigation of a body hanging from a tree out behind the hotel. If you haven’t already realized it by now, it is while meeting Kim you fully realize you are suffering from retrograde amnesia. Eventually you learn that you arrived in town a few days earlier and have done nothing but drink, get high, damage property, and annoy the locals with your self-aggrandizing behavior, including your obsession with insisting on how disco you are. Thankfully for you, Kim is an incredibly patient and forgiving person, who will set boundaries with you while also encouraging you to be your best. From here, you’ll need to figure out how to pay your hotel bill (damages included) so you have a place to sleep while also checking out the body out back to start your investigation.


The fictional world you inherit is incredibly imagined, a sort of alt-Earth history with many parallels to our world. Technology and culturally it feels most like the 1970s, with some overlap on either side. Your investigation has taken you to the impoverished port town of Martinaise, in the district of Revachol. Some fifty years ago there was a revolution that left a good portion of the area in disrepair, with little money to make improvements. There is a strike occurring with the dockworker’s union and they have shut down the harbor. Locals believe the union is responsible for the murder, as the dead man is a mercenary sent by Wild Pines (one of the world’s richest corporations) to try to bust the strike by intimidation and deployment of protesters and scabs.

You and Kim will interview representatives from both sides, using evidence you collect through observation and interrogation to make headway. Your character attributes affect the flavor and path your investigation takes; for example, a physically built Harry may be able to knock down doors or intimidate witnesses, while a more intellectual Harry may need to use his encyclopedic knowledge or empathy to convince others to help him. It’s impossible to see every possible permutation of the plot and puzzles in one or even two playthroughs; however, it will always culminate in the same climax (if not the same denouement, of which there are six). Delightfully, you have the option of going on many seemingly unrelated sidequests, such as say helping a local cryptozoologist (to Kim’s chagrin) look for phasmids. Yet most quests do wind up relating back to the main plot and can help Harry build up his attributes along the way.

There are three ways to build Harry’s stats throughout the game. The easiest is through clothing; you can collect a whole menagerie of hats, ties, glasses, coats, shirts, etc that will change your skill points. Some items will raise one area (e.g. drama) while curtailing another (e.g. authority). You can mix and match these at will to help pass checks. The second way is through gaining experience points by completing tasks. For every 100 XP, you will get a skill point you can use to raise attributes; alternatively, you can also acquire thought quests, which need a skill point to be equipped. These quests take game time to fully process (in which some attributes will be lessened in the meantime), and once Harry has completed the thought, he will gain a permanent benefit, like raising a stat, or finding more money in locked containers. Money (which can also be acquired by begging or pawning) is necessary to sleep at the hotel the first two nights; after that it’s only necessary if you want to use it to purchase clothes or various items to finish sidequests. Now’s a good time to mention that despite the hurried manner of Kim at times to finish the investigation, the game has no time limit. Time only progresses during conversations or more long-winded tasks, and the game is usually generous in letting you know if a certain action will cut off certain game paths.


The third way to affect stats, and my least favorite, is through using drugs. While some, like magnesium, are only used to restore health, Harry can use toxic chemicals to raise his stats. Nicotine, alcohol, and speed are easily bought or found in town, and they all provide significant help in certain areas; while they temporarily can reduce health or morale, those can be easily boosted back up with healing drugs. On my playthrough, I liberally used chemicals to boost my stats and I never not felt gross about it. Even setting aside the notion that these toxic chemicals would make someone a better detective overall, I was annoyed that there was little in the way of punishment for doing so. Without being a moralist about it, I find this method of stat progression uninteresting. Moreover, one can take this path without ruining Harry’s redemption arc in the slightest (should you choose that route). The whole idea that this out of control addict who nearly doomed an investigation with his use can suddenly use chemicals in moderation to help him is laughable.

Visually, the game is a treat. Martinaise is realized with watercolor expressionism, and if nothing else evokes how dreary the town has become. Dilapidated apartment buildings, abandoned shopping areas, and eroded coastlines dominate the scenery. While the faces of characters on screen are somewhat difficult to make out, during conversations a hand-drawn portrait accompanies the dialogue and they all excel in evoking a vibe for each person. While animations are used minimally, they are deployed well and are effective.

Background music is sparse and minimalist which is appreciated. The band British Sea Power wrote the BAFTA-winning score, and most of the tracks are what best be could considered ambient rock, with occasional flare of punk. The music never dominates a scene (unless Harry is also hearing music), serving mostly to give the game a gentle rhythm. Sound effects are also rare, but satisfying (especially the click of rolling dice and the beat when you make a good roll).

The menu system is extensive but for the most part user friendly. You can easily swap out items in your inventory. One menu keeps a list of all your red checks and white checks you have yet to complete, making finding them again easier. Once you acquire a map, you can quick travel from three locations (to the other three locations). Another menu shows your current attribute stats, while another keeps track of all your thought quests. Blissfully, there is no limit to how many times you can save the game, and the game will auto-save on top of that every once in a while.

The game was designed for a keyboard and mouse; while that works pretty flawlessly, I wanted to sit back and relax with a gamepad. Moving precisely doesn’t work quite right with the pad, which while not necessary, can be annoying. I also found that accessing some parts of the menu and triggering some in-game thought bubbles were a bit janky with the joystick.

My enjoyment of Disco Elysium is mostly driven by the addictive dice-roll elements and the incredible voice acting throughout. While we never hear Harry speak (outside of his internal narration), near everyone else is a veritable treat to listen to. Kim is voiced to perfection by Jullian Champenois, giving his character a vaguely French accent (despite being visually coded as Asian, Kim has only ever lived in the French coded Revachol). He’s soft-spoken, but his words can also provide a subtle bite. I loved every minute Kim was contributing to the conversation. I also have to give a shout-out to Cuno, a foul-mouthed, speed-addicted youth who’s been throwing rocks at the corpse. While the game grossly rewards you for giving him access to drugs, Cuno is simultaneously hilarious and endearing, and I sought out interaction with him as often as I could.


Despite Kim being characterized perfectly, I found most of the game to be terribly overwritten. Estonian novelist Robert Kurvitz wrote the script. He excels at evoking imagery and it’s incredible how much backstory (not only to Revachol, but the entire planet) is woven throughout the game to make everything feel real. But many characters drone on and on about their personal ideologies and political leanings, so much so that many of them begin to sound like professors and lose any emotional weight. Political theory plays a heavy role; you will be frequently asked about your leanings or given chances to espouse them. You can promote communism, fascism, moralism, or ultraliberalism, or be wishy-washy about all of them. Personally, I couldn’t always tell what options fit with which ideology (nor did I have interest in playing politics), so I wound up having no moral center. Several characters are also racist, and one in particular will drone on about his racist ideas (with painfully slow enunciation) for over a half an hour if you let him.

The game’s climax is intense and an intensely rewarding culmination of your investigation. While many loved how the game proceeds afterwards, I was left disappointed. For starters, the ending negates most of the detective work you’ve done throughout the game; while it’s not unrealistic, it solidifies that little you do prior matters at all. It also didn’t hold any emotional resonance for me, in part because there’s a further deluge of political ideology espoused.

Despite my complaints, I still loved the game and found the 25-30 hour mystery compelling enough that I started a new game so I could see how different skills played out with conversations and puzzles. However, I gave up on this endeavor quickly. A lot of the different choices you can make as Harry have only a little bit to do with strategy or ethical dilemmas, and mostly to do with shifting your personality. Much like the reason I didn’t replay Heavy Rain, I enjoyed the version of Harry I initially created, so seeing him be a different person was jarring. The biggest pitfall for me, though, was the fact that choosing alternate conversation options often winds up with Harry being an abusive, homophobic, and sexist dickwad. While many have replayed the game multiple times without every choosing to play Harry this way, doing so leaves a lot of repetition over another 25 hours of game time, something I can’t say I’m excited to do.

I want it to come across that despite all of my complaints, I highly recommend Disco Elysium to anyone who is intrigued by an adventure/RPG hybrid where no dexterity is required. I only emphasize my concerns as this may be the highest rated adventure of all-time by both fans and critics. Most likely it’s one of those games that you’ll either instantly love and immerse yourself in, or one of those games you’ll quickly find you dislike and won’t bother to rate at all given how long it is. While I had some misgivings about the details, the game’s general design is incredible and I hope many more future games use it for inspiration.