Disco Elysium - Released

Disco Elysium has been released:

You are a detective:
Disco Elysium is a groundbreaking open world role playing game. You're a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city block to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.

Features:
Unprecedented freedom of choice​. Intimidate, sweet-talk, resort to violence, write poetry, sing karaoke, dance like a beast or solve the meaning of life. Disco Elysium is the most faithful representation of desktop role playing ever attempted in video games.

Countless tools for role playing.​ Mix and match from 24 wildly different skills. Develop a personal style with 80 clothes items. Wield 14 tools from guns to flashlights to a boombox, or pour yourself a cocktail of 6 different psychoactive substances. Develop your character even further with 60 wild ​thoughts ​to think - with the detective's Thought Cabinet.

A revolutionary dialogue system with unforgettable characters. ​The world is alive with real people, not extras. Play them against each other, try to help them, or fall hopelessly in love. Disco Elysium's revolutionary dialogue system, with partially voiced characters, lets you do almost anything.

Carve your unique path across the city​. Explore, manipulate, collect tare or become a millionaire in an open world unlike anything you've seen before. The city of Revachol is yours for the taking, one small piece at a time. From the streets to the beaches - and beyond.

Hard boiled, hard core. ​Death, sex, taxes and disco - nothing is off the table. Revachol is a real place with real challenges. Solve a massive murder investigation, or relax and kick back with sprawling side-cases. The detective decides, the citizens abide.

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More information.

I'm reading good reviews everywhere. It's really nice to see an indie RPG really get the deserved praise when we had games such as Greedfall failing so hard to achieve mainstream recognition.

I haven't played it enough for a full opinion, but it's left a hell of a first impression. I did pause long enough to make a quick video wallpaper. Back in I go.

So much looking forward to play this. And reviews are so positive. Im almost afraid that mainstream media praise it so much. It will make me wander what is the catch, till I try it myself Hope its really just that good. If that is a case its like small miracle or something ... and another proof that best games are not made by large studios these days.

Just completed it. Only disappointed in the lack of autorun, edge panning and how it's not really 'open-world'

I'll likely pick this one up in a few weeks/months, when all the obligatory patches/adjustments have landed. Is anyone aware of any additional content currently in development for this product?

No patches needed (unless they'll try to optimize Unity's horrors where FPS drops significantly for no apparent reasons or loading the game lasts for half an hour).
There will be no DLC.

It only needs a patch that removes all the censored bullshit. Those of us that are not twitch streamers or youtube content creators don't need shit censoring.

yemeth said:

Just completed it. Only disappointed in the lack of autorun, edge panning and how it's not really 'open-world'

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My list of disappointments (if you can call it that) is just the one: the lack of edge panning is weirdly stifling. I keep fighting the urge to do it.

Archangel said:

It only needs a patch that removes all the censored bullshit. Those of us that are not twitch streamers or youtube content creators don't need shit censoring.

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True censorship is the removal of the word, and especially the idea, completely. I'm sure you can fill in the ****'s just fine.

About how long did your playthroughs take?

I read it's a 60-hour game...or can be.

That's good to know they aren't planning any additional content, knowing that will likely get me to purchase the game even sooner.

Looks good. For me it seems to have a vibe of Planescape Torment (which is one of the best games ever) with a large amount of reading, interesting environment and characters, off-beat humor, isometric view, mostly non-combat-based role-playing, etc.

I'm skittish, though, after the unenjoyment (for me) which was Torment Tides of Numenera, making me wonder if I could even enjoy a text-heavy game like this. I think that I can, if the writing is very good, but I'm not sure.

JFarrell71 said:

True censorship is the removal of the word, and especially the idea, completely. I'm sure you can fill in the ****'s just fine.

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That is a bullshit argument. I can also fill in words in shit written games.
There is no reason to censor words for games that we play inside our 4 walls.
At worst there should be an option to turn on or off censoring.
Also I think some of the voice acting was also censored..

NFLed said:

Looks good. For me it seems to have a vibe of Planescape Torment (which is one of the best games ever) with a large amount of reading, interesting environment and characters, off-beat humor, isometric view, mostly non-combat-based role-playing, etc.

I'm skittish, though, after the unenjoyment (for me) which was Torment Tides of Numenera, making me wonder if I could even enjoy a text-heavy game like this. I think that I can, if the writing is very good, but I'm not sure.

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I can't speak to Torment too much, haven't given it its overdue attention yet - But I have played a couple hours of Disco Elysium. The writing is fabulous all-around, and I can't remember laughing so much while playing a game. I haven't found it to be a problem at all. So far it's been a Hell of a ride for me.

Archangel said:

That is a bullshit argument. I can also fill in words in shit written games.
There is no reason to censor words for games that we play inside our 4 walls.
At worst there should be an option to turn on or off censoring.
Also I think some of the voice acting was also censored..

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If Cuno is calling you a faggot, and you KNOW he's calling you a faggot, what difference does it make if the game prints the word as F****T? I guess you could call that censorship, but it's trivial compared to disallowing a character from making such a slur in the first place. That's my point.

I don't think Disco Elysium (~6 hours of play) is all that much like Planescape: Torment. To me, that's a fairly superficial comparsion based on a) lots of text and b) amnesiac character. But it is pretty great, if you enjoy great writing, vivid characters, an interesting setting, and the innovative role-playing mechanics. I plan to play it quite a few times over the years. It's also occurred to me that writing a comprehensive guide for it would be interesting....hunting out all the different possibilities from the different choices you can make appeals to me.

Re: the censorship, could that possibly have been done because of policies certain countries have that might cause the game to get banned / pulled there?

For example, the Russian government has a long history of censoring anything that references homosexuality. Same with China.

I have no idea if a slur would be enough to cause this to happen but maybe they didn't want to risk it.

daveyd said:

For example, the Russian government has a long history of censoring anything that references homosexuality. Same with China.

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That particular part of the game is not censored and you may build your character towards phobic, accepting or not caring about varieties of sexuality. There is also a IIRC "gay underground" trait you may make active if you want but I have no idea what bonuses it gives (wrote already traits are pretty much irrelevant in the game). Could reload the game and check… Maybe.

But since I'm writing… Lemme add some info regarding censorship on lgbt content in mentioned countries.

Sometimes because of temporary law suspension, or due to more liberty for festivals or international market oriented works, or luck, or something… Sometimes something does avoid censors in countries that don't allow lgbt content on screen.

An example from Russia is a 2013 movie Winter Journey you've never heard about. I have no idea if the version on YT, which is blurry as if it's Playstation exclusive, is legit or not. Haven't watched it as I can't stand blur and although I'm interested to see such exotic movie, decided to wait for a better version on today's popular platforms.

An example from China before they reinstated draconian antiLGBT laws is the web series Addicted that was stopped after it's first season. Now this one is available legally worldwide on viki.com with subtitles in numerous languages, for free with ads, and IMO is a mustwatch before you die:
https://www.viki.com/tv/30705c-addicted?q=addicted
The show's two leads were forbidden to appear together ever again in public or in other filmed materials because of their onscreen chemistry. Note that the banning/censoring it's continuation is not only because of the lgbt content - the show slaps China itself with it's class differences between rich and poor and how different mindsets they have (is that really socialism then?). It's pretty much unbelievable even this one season exists thus, when you finally get sick of mainstream mediocrity and dare to watch some exotics, give it a shot.