REVIEW: Disco Elysium – The Final Cut

The hotel room looks like a tornado has passed through it when you arrive. Your underwear is all you have, and clothes are scattered about the debris. A ceiling fan spins silently above your head and cold air rushes through a broken window. The tape deck spins in silence, with the recording scattered across the floor. Your head and thoughts are in chaos. Each thought is rolling in, trying to fit the pieces that don't fit together. Detective, it's time for you to get up.

Disco Elysium – The Final Cutis a new release of ZA/UM’s 2019 RPG. The updated version boasts many quality-of-life improvements over the original release (which I must admit, I haven't played). Based on my experiences and those of others, I believe this version is the best. It's also available on PS4/PS5 and PC.

Disco Elysium is the story of an amnesiac Detective, his partner and a body hanging from trees behind a Hotel. Although it is a general description of the plot, players will be able to discover the details themselves. This experience is crucial to the game's success. The world of Disco Elysium is full of ideas, people, and places. I can't stress enough how important it to be open-minded when you enter this game.

Players are immediately thrown into a murder investigation once they get up from their hotel rooms. Players will meet politicians, lobbyists and junkies as well as business owners, laborers and inanimate objects who want to talk with them. The game features a lot of characters and ideologies for such a small world. Players can explore the various characters and ideas at their leisure to come up with their own conclusions.

This last point is crucial in Disco Elysium's game design. While many RPGs offer "player choice" and how it affects a story, almost no other RPG I have played walks like Disco Elysium. This game will allow players to make decisions that can alienate others, kill people, or make enemies of whole groups. Poor or uninformed decisions can result in whole potions being shut off from the game. Players will need to adapt their approach to succeed elsewhere. It's fine, in fact it's great.

Disco Elysium is a RPG that focuses on building your character and putting points in a skill tree. This will unlock both doors and dialog options. Disco Elysium does not allow for combat or interaction with the world. Instead, players interact with any object, person or location they find and make a series dialogue-based decisions to move the action forward.

Skill checks are required for the most important actions. They are based on 24 different "skills". These skills can be broken down into four sections: Intellect (Psyche), Physique (Physique), and Motorics. You can increase your detective's ability in each area by leveling up six skills. You want to charm Revachol's citizens? Earn points for Charisma or Savoir Faire. You want to be a brute that muscle his way through interactions. Keep your eyes on Half Light and Physical Instrument. You have the ability to personalize your detective in many ways. The game doesn't punish players for making the wrong choice. While you may not be able to advance in one direction, it is possible to increase your skills and open up new possibilities. This skill system is so closely linked to the story and the game world, it virtually eliminates the possibility of failure.

In many other titles, players can make the wrong decision and have to start a save from an earlier game or fail an objective.Disco ElysiumFailure is not an optionReward yourself. Players will not see all the details by the end their first playthrough or their second. While failing a skill test may shorten one line of inquiry, you can still improve your skill or pursue other options to get to the next plot point. This progression strategy is extremely clever. It kept me interested and motivated me to explore more of the city and to investigate areas I might not otherwise have.

Revachol and the surrounding area make for one of my favorite places to live. The world is both familiar and completely foreign, from the grimy streets in Revachol to its snowy hinterlands. It is designed in a way that makes it easy to explain the more bizarre parts. Every time I sat down and played, I was excited about the possibilities of what I would discover next. And how it would change next time.

I could go on about the many ways Disco Elysiumshines. It features a moody, beautiful score, an entirely unique visual style, voice work, and is consistently brilliant. This game has millions of dialogue lines, which is not an exaggeration. All of these dialogue lines are voiced with flair. The voice talent cannot be overstated. While there were some noticeable glitches and bugs at launch, including one that didn't work for certain voices, the ZA/UM team has fixed most of them and the game is now in excellent shape.

This game is a must-have for RPG fans. It reinvents what a roleplaying game can look like mechanically and provides a compelling narrative with characters that will challenge your resolve and loyalty. This is a game that will change the way you think about RPGs.