Disco Elysium as Gothic fiction

Disco Elysium demonstrates many hallmarks of the Gothic through its storyline and representational elements, particularly its emphasis on the instability of its protagonist, the sense of decline and decay conveyed through its setting, and the interconnected secret histories that are revealed through exploration. Furthermore, many of the game’s stylistic and ludic features, such as its dense description and emotive language, and its overwhelming array of options, interactions, and responses, can be understood as engagements with the uncanny and disorienting excess of the Gothic tradition. These Gothic elements manifest most frequently through the game’s attempt to represent psychological complexity within its role playing system, its depictions of urban spaces, and its approach to questions of unresolved memory and history. The presence of these Gothic features in Disco Elysium work to contest the game’s categorisation as a ‘detective role playing game.’ While the genres are closely connected, detective fiction typically follows a trajectory in which the history of the central mystery becomes progressively clearer through the accumulation of information and detail, whereas the Gothic traditionally seeks to maintain and heighten a sense of disorientation. Exploring the tension between Disco Elysium’s Gothic elements and its status as a detective game allows for a richer appreciation of the political and social commentary that emerges from both its narrative and gameplay.

“You Won’t Even Know Who You Are Anymore”: Bakthinian Polyphony and the Challenge to the Ludic Subject in Disco Elysium

When approaches to the notion of the ‘self’ as it exists in the game have been discussed in game studies – for instance, through work in existential ludology or through discussions of agency – the ‘self’ in question, explicitly or implicitly, has tended to be the rational, stable, unified and coherent self of the humanist tradition. By fracturing the ludic subject into a set of contrasting and conflicting voices, each with their own apparent motivations and goals, Disco Elysium presents a challenge to this singular and unified understanding of selfhood. That this challenge is situated within the representation of a figure who, at face value, seems to represent the very locus of the authoritative, self-possessed subjectivity of humanism – not only a straight, middle-aged white man, but also a figure of police and colonial authority – strengthens the game’s critical slant. Drawing on theories of ludic and virtual subjectivity, this paper will approach Disco Elysium with a focus on this undermining of stable and unitary understanding of subjectivity. First, the game will be considered in relation to the tradition of film noir, and the way the genre both established and subverted the figure of the detective as the avatar of stable, rational, authoritative masculine selfhood. Next, its treatment of the theme of amnesia will be considered, drawing a parallel to Jayemanne’s (2017) reading of Planescape: Torment to examine how the loss of memory creates structures of discontinuity and rupture in the represented ludic self. Finally, Bakhtinian notions of polyphony will be invoked to address the game’s plurality of different voices not (as it is usually present) in a dialogue between individual subjects but within a single, fragmented subjectivity.

Selling Elysium: the political economy of radical game distribution

This paper explores Disco Elysium’s first major expansion, “Working Class Update” as emblematic of the potential fracture between the game’s themes and its politics of production and distribution. Our central claim is that in this update, the studio has reacted to the audience’s appreciation for the game’s labor themes within broader dissatisfaction with the industry’s otherwise exploitative practices, yet was constrained by the contemporary dynamics of said industry. First, we examine Disco Elysium’s radical political orientation and the platformized political economy of digital game distribution through ZA/UM’s origins within the Estonia-specific ICT scene. Second, we describe the current state of videogames distribution, in critical dialog with Dyer-Witheford and De Peuter’s concept of a “game of multitude.” We show the limits and contradictions of Disco Elysium to enact radical political stance in a grow-ingly consolidated and platform-dependent video games market. Finally, through a qualitative empirical analysis of the community’s responses to the Worker’s Class Update on Reddit and Steam, we examine the game’s fit into the above-mentioned framework through key themes of dissonant development, tactical games and software commons.

The Object Gives Rise to Thought: Hermeneutics of Objects in Disco Elysium

The article presents an analysis and interpretation of Disco Elysium, an award-winning videogame published by ZA/UM studio in 2019. The main problem explored in the research concerns the ontological basis upon which the game builds the complex personality of its protagonist and his relationship with the storyworld. The main theoretical works utilized in the analysis and interpretation are Object-Oriented Ontology by Graham Harman and Existence and Hermeneutics by Paul Ricoeur. My thesis is that Disco Elysium presents time, events and history as the effects of various tensions between the protagonist and the objects. In doing so, the game offers a non-anthropocentric perspective on human being and gives rise to questions about objects as a basis for rethinking the human condition. The article concludes with the formulation of a possible new hermeneutical approach founded on Object-Oriented Ontology.

Production of Game Making Spaces: Disco Elysium and the game making community in Estonia

This article discusses Disco Elysium in the context of the development of game making communities in Estonia and international production networks. Drawing on an analysis of secondary sources, in-depth interviews and a survey with game makers in Estonia, this article contributes to studies on national and regional game-production cultures. The aim of this article is two-fold. First, it contributes to studies of game production cultures by discussing the development and structure of game-making communities in Estonia. As such, it enriches the understanding of game production in Europe by providing empirical data about game making in Estonia. Second, based on the example of Disco Elysium, the article demonstrates how national, regional and international production networks contribute to the spatial politics of game production. In conclusion, this article emphasises the importance of the construction of space in game production and the asymmetries of power among game production regions.

The Hanged Rhizome on the Tree: Arborescence and Multiplicity in Disco Elysium

This paper looks at Disco Elysium as a model for a better understanding of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of the rhizome when applied to video games. It analyses the use and implementation of the many forms of expressing multiplicity that are present in Disco Elysium and that are manifested through the configuration of the avatar, the use of the player’s choice, and representations of space and time in the game. Ultimately, this paper also serves as a coalescence of existing Game Studies scholarship on rhizomic relations, multiplicities and affect to create a common ground for future conversations on these topics.

“What kind of cop are you?”: Disco Elysium’s Technologies of the Self within the Posthuman Multiverse

I suggest in this article, drawing upon Francesca Ferrando, Karen Barad and N Katherine Hayles, that Disco Elysium illustrates the human through the mode of a ‘posthuman multiverse’. Per Ferrando, humans and other beings act as nodes in a material multiverse while what we think, eat, our behaviours and relations, create part of a rhizomatic ecology that can be understood as who and what we are. This, I illustrate, overcomes a complicated tension in existing posthuman theory, particularly as it relates to game studies. Although theorists have detailed the entanglement of players and machines, and the new materialist nature of becoming, it is unclear to what extent human-machine assemblages can be said to be a singular ‘thing’. This is tackled in Disco Elysium as the seemingly mundane and often invisible actions the player takes, all play a role in constructing Harry Dubois and the world that is also endlessly producing him. Game actions, therefore, can be viewed as ‘technologies of the multiverse’, the ontological functions through which beings come to exist in a dimension. The game positions the player in a ‘relational intra-activity’ not only with the actions and outcomes of play, as discussed in previous scholarship, but also with the hypothetical outcomes of choices they have not made. When read through the lens of Ferrando’s philosophical posthuman multiverse, Disco Elysium represents a valuable resource for bridging gaps in contemporary posthuman scholarship.

“Making Sense in a Senseless World”: Disco Elysium’s Absurd Hero

This article examines the representation of mental health issues in the computer role-playing game Disco Elysium by using Albert Camus’ theory of the absurd as a basis. Through his daily work routine as a detective, the protagonist Harry DuBois’ trauma unfolds through the course of the game while simultaneously revealing the psychosocial aspects of trauma. Interpreting Harry’s existential struggles as those of an absurd hero supports the idea that finding (greater) meaning is not a necessity when coping with trauma.