DEVELOPER ZA/UM PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE
Role-playing games inherently involve experimenting with alternate personalities. But few are as fundamentally about personal identity as Disco Elysium. The detective RPG from Slovakian developer ZA/UM plunges so deeply into your sense of self that your inner thoughts have inner thoughts. Playing as an alcoholic cop who goes on a bender so extreme it wipes his entire memory, you must solve the murder of a man found hanging in a tree while also solving the mystery of who the heck you are.
Many RPGs have your character start out as a blank slate, but in Disco Elysium you are a shattered slate, your mind a million shards. Every character skill relates to a fragment of your disassembled self, and each of those has its own voice. Your logic skill, for example, will help you solve conundrums. Your electro-chemistry skill, by comparison, will go hog-wild whenever you spy drugs or alcohol, begging you to indulge. It’s up to you which parts of your mind you listen to, and what kind of detective forms from that.