Disco Elysium: Finding Happiness in the Absurd. How Disco Elysium inspires hope, in a broken world. Spoilers ahead.

By Claire Watson

There is nothing. Only warm, primordial blackness [...] You don’t have to do anything more anymore.

Camus understands that we live life in constant contradiction; everyday is lived in anticipation of the end. We are bound to cycle, but cycle is excruciating. Disco Elysium begins after the protagonist, Harry DuBois, attempts to commit suicide, and greets players with this quoted nihilistic concept. Harry wakes up as a blank-slate, his name and all his possessions lost to him. As the game unfolds, we learn that his amnesia is attributed to an addiction fueled rampage, in which he attempted to end his life and free himself from his absurd existence. As a game, Disco Elysium is fascinating, because as a player, you simply cannot grant Harry this sweet release without shelving your new purchase. As a player, you have to do everything. 

The nature of video games as a whole means that it is very difficult for a player to become passive. From platformers to sandboxes to shooters, the player’s own ability and desire to proceed influence the game at every turn. Disco Elysium’s mechanics make the game a perfect device to explore absurdist thinking and how we might find peace in such a ridiculous world. The game recognises the dangers of inaction; it challenges players that take the easy middle-route, while chastising those that spam their keyboards and exhaust the dialogue trees.  Sure, a mistake may entail Harry’s death, but failure to make an informed decision might simply make you a terrible person. With the beloved but watchful lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi at your side, that’s a fate far worse than death. The game is built upon heaps of writing. Robert Kurvitz, the game’s lead writer explains that “Revachol, the city you’re in, has 1 million words per square kilometre.” There’s a lot of pressure on the player to be observant, to weigh the pros and cons and examine their values, before making a decision. Absurdity must inspire action, or we enthral ourselves to “primordial blackness.”

You play as Harry DuBois, but the rest is up to you. Harry wakes, affronted by his humanity, and his need to be human, driven not by the need to live, but by the want to do. The game follows rpg mechanics, allowing players to sort skill-points into the 24 different parts of Harry’s mind. The skills are split into Psyche, Intellect, Physique, and Motorics. Each fragment of his internal thought-process is equipped with its own voice, but even cooler than that, each fragment is equipped with its own wants, and an ability to lie. For example, you might put all your experience points into drama so you can better detect when a character is lying. Drama isn’t merely a truth-detector however. This voice longs for entertainment, and if you’re not careful, will let you fall for lies in exchange for a compelling story. These voices will fight with each other, brilliantly evoking the instability of the human mind. Which voice you listen to, if any, is up to you. 

On top of these skills, are thoughts. Throughout the game Harry will encounter different thought processes that you can choose to internalise. Kurvitz explains that the thought cabinet is there to support the skills, but the game wants to give the player as much free-will as it can. Thoughts can increase learning caps, re-open checks, and give Harry a little extra flair. With thoughts I can become a superstar, sad, homosexual socialist. Just like real life. Importantly, this mechanic, while it can be largely forgotten about, allows players to really make the game their own. It serves as a reminder to really think about what you’re doing. Harry is so much more than just a typical-stock character. He is an extension of you. There will be times throughout this game where sometimes the easiest choice to make is the one that goes against everything you think right. Do you bypass a racist by indulging in his ideology? Or do you risk your life trying to round-house kick him in the face? 

But why does any of this matter? The way Disco Elysium utilises different philosophies to not just build a world, but to design characters and mechanics, creating these tragically beautiful and entertaining moments, is fascinating. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a game like this before, and with the saddening news of leading creatives Kurvitz, Hindpere and Luiga involuntarily leaving the company, it is unlikely that we’ll see such a game again. Yet something as creative of this cannot simply be left in the world. I don’t think it’s possible to play such a game and walk away unchanged. Player reviews on Steam range from, “the writers behind this game have caused me to seriously consider the way I approach my life.” to “HARDCORE TO THE MEGA!” to “tiresome, woke agenda preached throughout game.” So what can we take away from this game? 

Back to Camus. In his essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ the philosopher writes, “if I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.” Seemingly nihilistic at first, most-living comes from the idea that nothing we do matters. It may be a reductive statement, but simply we cannot win at life. There’s no one that can truthfully say on their death-bed that they were the best at living, that they had better morals and better experiences than everyone else. Camus proposes that we live for ourselves; that we experience as much of life as we can, so that we can enjoy life. Disco Elysium encourages players to explore every corner of Revachol. Not only does it urge us to check every locked door, but it begs us to talk to strangers, to read, to play games, to listen to music and to sing karaoke. While your partner might admonish you for wasting time, the game rewards you with experience points for every detour you take. 

This game sparks an impulsion to experience both Revachol and the real world to the fullest. Revachol is gloomy. It showcases the tragedy of a post-war city, cheated out of a quality of life. We see this in the derelict cinder-block town, the Doomed Commercial Area, and in the substance abuse among NPCs. Beyond the world of the game is the “the Pale,” a depressing force consuming the whole planet. It highlights the struggle of a loss of place, culture, and history, felt by the Estonian creators in their daily life. Yet, and here is where the absurdity really peaks, throughout the game you meet beautiful people, with beautiful stories, and beautiful lives. If you get the opportunity to sing karaoke, you’ll sing a song imbued with nihilism, but under the beautiful disco lights that pan across the only place you know to call home. And of course, there’s Kim. 

Kim Kitsuragi feels like the one good thing left in Revachol. You wake up, knowing nothing about yourself. You’re hungover, near-death, and cracking under the weight of sheer loneliness. Then there’s Kim, pushing you back on track. In a world so absurd it’s hard to differentiate from reality and Harry’s insanity Kim becomes the voice of reason. As a side-kick, Kim is unique in that he can disagree with the player. He trusts you, but he refuses to let you forget your responsibilities. He really trusts you, but he will push you to experience hard truths. Kim is everything that Harry isn’t. Through his humour and empathy, he brings a brightness to the game that could not be achieved without him. Ultimately, he shows that in such a cruel world, it’s possible to love and be loved. One positive steam review simply reads, “Kim Kitsuragi.”

A game that begins with such chillingly cold lines, reveals itself to be a tale of hope. As Camus writes, “one must imagine Sisyphus happy,” he begs us to fight for happiness in our desolate world. It isn’t easy for Harry to regain his sense of self and recover from the traumas of existence. You can play him as a man completely devoid of hope, but I think this game truly shines when you fight for Harry’s happiness. Really, one must imagine Harry happy.