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Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium is a 2019 role-playing video game developed and published by ZA/UM. The game was written and designed by a team led by Estonian novelist Robert Kurvitz and executive producer Kaur Kender, featuring an art style based on oil-painting and music by the English band Sea Power. The game was released for Windows in October 2019 and macOS in April 2020. An expanded version of the game featuring full voice acting and new content, subtitled The Final Cut, was released for consoles in 2021 alongside a free update for the PC versions. In August 2025, the game was ported for Android.
Disco Elysium follows a troubled detective with no memory of his identity or the world around him. As he investigates a murder with a detective from another precinct, the player can piece together the protagonist's identity and discover what led him to his state. Disco Elysium is a non-traditional role-playing game featuring little combat. Instead, events are resolved through skill checks and dialogue trees using a system of 24 skills representing the protagonist's different aspects and personalities, each of which can speak directly to the player to influence their decisions. The game is based on a tabletop role-playing game setting that Kurvitz had created before forming ZA/UM in 2016 to adapt it into a video game. This is the second time the Elysium setting is explored, following the 2013 novel Sacred and Terrible Air.
Disco Elysium received critical acclaim upon its release, winning numerous awards, notably at the Game Awards 2019 (Best Independent Game, Best Narrative, Best Role Playing Game, Fresh Indie Game). It has sold more than five million copies, and is regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, and a strong example of video games as an art form. Though a success, conflicts at ZA/UM around 2021 led to several of the lead developers and writers, including Kurvitz and Kender, to leave and form their own studios. As a result, by October 2024, at least four different studios in addition to ZA/UM had announced projects to develop spiritual successors to Disco Elysium.
Disco Elysium is a role-playing video game that features an open world and dialogue-heavy gameplay mechanics. The game is presented in an isometric perspective in which the player character is controlled. The player takes the role of a detective, who suffers from alcohol and drug-induced amnesia, on a murder case. The player can move the detective about the screen to interact with non-player characters (NPC) and highlighted objects or move onto other screens. Early in the game, the player gains a partner, Kim Kitsuragi, another detective who acts as the protagonist's voice of professionalism and who offers advice or support in certain dialogue options.
The gameplay features no combat in the traditional sense; instead, combat is handled through skill checks and dialogue trees. There are four primary attributes in the game: Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics. Each attribute has six distinct secondary skills for a total of 24, which the player can improve through skill points earned from levelling up. Upgrading these skills helps the player character pass skill checks, based on a random dice roll, but potentially result in negative effects and character quirks, discouraging minmaxing. For instance, a player character with high Drama may be able to detect and fabricate lies effectively, but may also become prone to hysterics and paranoia. Likewise, high Electrochemistry shields the player character from the negative effects of drugs and provides knowledge on them, but may also lead to substance abuse and other self-destructive, self-gratifying behaviours. The choice of clothing that the player equips on the player-character can also impart both positive and negative effects on certain skills.
Disco Elysium features a secondary inventory system known as the "Thought Cabinet". Thoughts are unlocked through conversations with other characters and internal dialogues within the protagonist's mind. The player is then able to "internalize" a thought through a certain amount of in-game hours, which, once completed, grants the player character benefits but also occasionally negative effects, a concept that ZA/UM compared to the trait system used in the Fallout series. A limited number of slots are available in the Thought Cabinet at the start, though more can be gained with experience levels. For example, an early possible option for the Thought Cabinet is the "Hobocop" thought, in which the character ponders the option of living on the streets to save money, which reduces the character's composure with other NPCs while the thought is being internalized. When the character has completed the Hobocop thought, it allows the player receive twice as much money from collecting and recycling trash. Later, the player may opt to spend a skill point to "forget" completed thoughts in order to make space for different ones. This removes it from the Thought Cabinet for the rest of the playthrough, along with any bonuses gained from its completion.
The 24 skills also play into the dialogue trees, creating a situation where the player-character may have internal debates with one or more aspects of either mind or body, creating the idea that the player is communicating with a fragmented persona. These internal conversations may provide suggestions or additional insight that can guide the player into actions or dialogue with the game's non-playable characters, depending on the skill points invested into the skill. For example, Inland Empire, a subskill of Psyche, is described by ZA/UM as a representation of the intensity of the soul, and may come into situations where the player-character may need to pass themselves off under a fake identity with the conviction behind that stance, should the player accept this suggestion when debating with Inland Empire.
Disco Elysium takes place in the fantastic realist world of Elysium, developed by Kurvitz and his team in the years prior, which includes over six thousand years of history. The fiction has been constructed with attention to the theory of historical materialism, which posits that, even if the details were different, human history would play out in a similar way.
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Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium is a 2019 role-playing video game developed and published by ZA/UM. The game was written and designed by a team led by Estonian novelist Robert Kurvitz and executive producer Kaur Kender, featuring an art style based on oil-painting and music by the English band Sea Power. The game was released for Windows in October 2019 and macOS in April 2020. An expanded version of the game featuring full voice acting and new content, subtitled The Final Cut, was released for consoles in 2021 alongside a free update for the PC versions. In August 2025, the game was ported for Android.
Disco Elysium follows a troubled detective with no memory of his identity or the world around him. As he investigates a murder with a detective from another precinct, the player can piece together the protagonist's identity and discover what led him to his state. Disco Elysium is a non-traditional role-playing game featuring little combat. Instead, events are resolved through skill checks and dialogue trees using a system of 24 skills representing the protagonist's different aspects and personalities, each of which can speak directly to the player to influence their decisions. The game is based on a tabletop role-playing game setting that Kurvitz had created before forming ZA/UM in 2016 to adapt it into a video game. This is the second time the Elysium setting is explored, following the 2013 novel Sacred and Terrible Air.
Disco Elysium received critical acclaim upon its release, winning numerous awards, notably at the Game Awards 2019 (Best Independent Game, Best Narrative, Best Role Playing Game, Fresh Indie Game). It has sold more than five million copies, and is regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, and a strong example of video games as an art form. Though a success, conflicts at ZA/UM around 2021 led to several of the lead developers and writers, including Kurvitz and Kender, to leave and form their own studios. As a result, by October 2024, at least four different studios in addition to ZA/UM had announced projects to develop spiritual successors to Disco Elysium.
Disco Elysium is a role-playing video game that features an open world and dialogue-heavy gameplay mechanics. The game is presented in an isometric perspective in which the player character is controlled. The player takes the role of a detective, who suffers from alcohol and drug-induced amnesia, on a murder case. The player can move the detective about the screen to interact with non-player characters (NPC) and highlighted objects or move onto other screens. Early in the game, the player gains a partner, Kim Kitsuragi, another detective who acts as the protagonist's voice of professionalism and who offers advice or support in certain dialogue options.
The gameplay features no combat in the traditional sense; instead, combat is handled through skill checks and dialogue trees. There are four primary attributes in the game: Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics. Each attribute has six distinct secondary skills for a total of 24, which the player can improve through skill points earned from levelling up. Upgrading these skills helps the player character pass skill checks, based on a random dice roll, but potentially result in negative effects and character quirks, discouraging minmaxing. For instance, a player character with high Drama may be able to detect and fabricate lies effectively, but may also become prone to hysterics and paranoia. Likewise, high Electrochemistry shields the player character from the negative effects of drugs and provides knowledge on them, but may also lead to substance abuse and other self-destructive, self-gratifying behaviours. The choice of clothing that the player equips on the player-character can also impart both positive and negative effects on certain skills.
Disco Elysium features a secondary inventory system known as the "Thought Cabinet". Thoughts are unlocked through conversations with other characters and internal dialogues within the protagonist's mind. The player is then able to "internalize" a thought through a certain amount of in-game hours, which, once completed, grants the player character benefits but also occasionally negative effects, a concept that ZA/UM compared to the trait system used in the Fallout series. A limited number of slots are available in the Thought Cabinet at the start, though more can be gained with experience levels. For example, an early possible option for the Thought Cabinet is the "Hobocop" thought, in which the character ponders the option of living on the streets to save money, which reduces the character's composure with other NPCs while the thought is being internalized. When the character has completed the Hobocop thought, it allows the player receive twice as much money from collecting and recycling trash. Later, the player may opt to spend a skill point to "forget" completed thoughts in order to make space for different ones. This removes it from the Thought Cabinet for the rest of the playthrough, along with any bonuses gained from its completion.
The 24 skills also play into the dialogue trees, creating a situation where the player-character may have internal debates with one or more aspects of either mind or body, creating the idea that the player is communicating with a fragmented persona. These internal conversations may provide suggestions or additional insight that can guide the player into actions or dialogue with the game's non-playable characters, depending on the skill points invested into the skill. For example, Inland Empire, a subskill of Psyche, is described by ZA/UM as a representation of the intensity of the soul, and may come into situations where the player-character may need to pass themselves off under a fake identity with the conviction behind that stance, should the player accept this suggestion when debating with Inland Empire.
Disco Elysium takes place in the fantastic realist world of Elysium, developed by Kurvitz and his team in the years prior, which includes over six thousand years of history. The fiction has been constructed with attention to the theory of historical materialism, which posits that, even if the details were different, human history would play out in a similar way.