I pulled a 3 nighter to try and do a 100p run, ran into a few spots that gave me very real emotional whiplash, the third act pissed me off and was so bleak that it felt like being broken up with. Probably one of the greatest games I've ever experienced because you don't play this game, you read it. 50% RPG 50% Point and Click adventure, somebody please throw this team just enough cash to keep them hungry enough to keep making games like this one or other stories set in this world, this game runs at the intellectual and emotion intensity level of the canning factory scene from What Became of Edith Finch if you play it like a homicide detective, I pretended that I was Detective Joe Kenda: Homicide Hunter half the time and Shawn Spencer from Psych the other half, totally worked, I always did my job correctly, I always chose the goofy dialogue options or the ones that had to do with paranormal stuff to try to make my partner laugh, I punched out a dude 14 inches taller than me and the ugliest 12 year old ever drawn, both deserved it, both had 3 times the speech options after I did it. 8.5/10 because act 3 abused my pysche, but I still really want to talk about it and love watching the team talk about it, it's been an interesting dialectic to tame. Disco Inferno! (Hit the button)
i remember laughing at this thinking that the developers were full of themselves when i actually played it i was speachless i cant believe how good the game turned out to be
Honestly has some of the best RP in an RPG I’ve played in a long time. The skills matter hard, with extra details being missed with no notification if you don’t have the right ones high enough. Skills being too low can make you fail checks, but having too much of a skill leads it to dominate the inner dialogue and give you advice all the time instead of just when it’s needed. Maxing out everything make you a high strung mess with a dozen voices in your head trying tot all over each other. Sometimes, rarely, you might not want to succeed a skill check, since choosing the action isn’t a good idea in the first place. Although it’s clear how dialogue trees proceed, you don’t want to clear every option like it’s Skyrim, since some choices are inappropriate or create penalties to related skill checks. It’s really absurd how many man hours went into inserting the absurd amount of words and effects into the things the player does. I like the writing too, but I’m very, very impressed with the game part of this video game.
One of the most striking things to me is that I never even thought about my skill specs while playing. I just thought “I guess I’ll put another in X” and didn’t stress about it. Very important to have that ease of decision in an RPG.
If I had seen the title before playing the game, I likely would've thought the devs to be egomaniacs. Having played the game, I think they're impressively humble.
they literally kinda put their story in a side quest of the game, about a game company that went bankrupt because wanted to make a revolutionary game. The good thing is that in real life they didn't went bankrupt.
I've noticed many people in the west think of eastern europeans as drunks or don't think much about them at all, but I hope as more people play this game they discover a new way of looking at topics such as politics and culture, that these things are not absolutes and you are free to entertain thoughts that might challenge your view without bursting with the anger that seems so comon these days, and that discussions between people of opposing views are not debates that need to be "won" for your prefered side, people grow by exchanging ideeas and things like deplatforming and canceling are toxic to the progress of thought
It's just the effect of propaganda during the multiple generations long cold war era, we just have to deal with it both on the western and on the eastern sides of the fallen Berlin wall. Maybe we'll be done with it by the years 2150? Hopefully!
Having thought all of my life, that gaming is stupid and usually a waste of time, I see that I need to become a gamer myself after hearing this intelligent discussion by the Estonian narrative game developers. Thanks Argo and Robert!
man what a game they literally made a great and memorable character out of a tie and you can easily miss it I would have missed it if I didn't read about it online at this point they are just flexing with their writing talents
so... not Aleksander Rostov. 34:45 and 38:15 Who the hell was that? Is the other one really Robert Kurvitz? Any detectives over there who can help me solve this? Anyone??
I've always thought that one of the characters in the game looked a lot like brett anderson and hearing them talk about suede in this interview makes me think the likeness was intentional
while disco elysium is one of the best crpgs I have ever played it isn't exactly a new genre however i haven't seen a better skills system ever before its really perfection. your game doesn't have to be a new genre to be ground breaking disco elysium is ground breaking, unusual and fun at the same time unlike you know some *other* games
I guess some people don't like the freedom to be communist/fascist/etc in the game because they would like the game to not allow players to choose believes they think to be intolerant.
@@CanelaAguila sadly it is. I’ve seen many people write it off as “commie propaganda” not realizing that you don’t need to align with that ideology at all.
@@mixmaster6827 funniest part is that it criticizes ALL the ideologies that you choose. Your thoughts both give you negatives and positives to all sides. Hell, even choosing NO idealogy, it criticizes you for doing so.
@@mixmaster6827 Yep, I've seen multiple people online who are on the fence start posts by saying "should I buy this game or is it just communist gibberish". So much for the tolerant right
Very late comment here, but Rostov is not present on the stage. I would suggest editing the description to include Argo Tuulik. Not a good look, especially after not even knowing who he is up there with the camera rolling..
I feel that was a deliberate choice though as it did tie everything together and made sense in the context of the world that you explore throughout the game. If you do all of the cryptozoology quests and interrogate everyone about the history of the city it definitely is supported by what you learn before you solve the case. I did feel that the game could have done with a new game plus mode where you can play through a remixed version of the game with higher stats and with your character being aware of the outcome of the investigation but I can understand why that wasn't done. All the same I can understand why it would have been a bit underwhelming after some of the crazier, more dramatic stuff that comes about in the latter part of the game only to find out that in the end the solution to the mystery had very little to do with the events that followed the murder and instead was because of conflicts that happened before your character was even born.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 Meh, that's still no excuse. You don't have to sacrifice plot for the sake of the themes, truly great writing would manage to keep both
@@hazardousjazzgasm129 that's a matter of opinion. The whole point of the ending is that the little adventure Harry went on doesn't magically fix all his problems. Harry was a terrible person and a week of doing decent police work isn't going to make everyone forgive him. Fiction often presents these sorts of redemption stories uncritically and I think about what this ending says about that narrative convention much more than I would have if the ending had made me feel like I had put the answers together based on good detective work and left off with Harry ready to continue as a new man.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 That's not what I mean, I'm fine with all that. The whole feigned plot twist of the killer being some loner isolationist who was completely divorced from nearly every aspect of the investigation was contrived. I was more than ok with where Harry ends up at the end
I'd say one of the game's big themes is that ideology is a complicated thing, and hard to say what it even means. Like every character in DE who has a strong take on politics has some deep contradictions to it, and that's just kind of the nature of the beast. Joyce is an ultra liberal who has a high position in a global shipping company, but she's also proud of Revachol and would have preferred it to remain independent under the Communards. Evrart is a solid Union man who talks about wanting to help the working man, and he does genuinely seem to be intending to, but he also wants to enrich himself through underhanded tactics and his plan is basically to create a new company that's just nicer to its workers without really fixing the reasons why things are bad in the first place. And the last true Communist is supposed to be ideologically devoted to the liberation of the people yet simultaneously hates those people with a passion. So basically your conceotion of "communism is when you're the USSR" is kind of dumb and ineffectual against people who've obviously thought about matters of ideology a lot deeper than that.
@@Graknorke So ignoring the USSR, do we want to talk about China? Cambodia? Zimbabwe? Or maybe one of the South American dictatorships? I can keep going if you need me to~
@@Canadish which south american dictatorships are u referring to exactly? the one in guatemla that the us helped put into place in a violent coup after a democratically elected socialist took office? or maybe u are referring to pinochet, who was put into power by a us-backed military junta. of course u arent because those dont fit ur narrative, ur likely referring to castro, who was widely loved by his people except for the ultra rich that he took the land back from. conditions for the general popilation in cuba objectively got better under castro and almost all lasting problems can be attributed to sanctions and sabotage attampts the us put into place for fear that global working class mught realize their conditions could actually change. ur a product of mindless propaganda. id highly suggest u read about thomas sankara as well.
I'm already convinced to buy everything they'll put out in the next 20 years.
I know, right? It's a safe bet!
Same
I pulled a 3 nighter to try and do a 100p run, ran into a few spots that gave me very real emotional whiplash, the third act pissed me off and was so bleak that it felt like being broken up with. Probably one of the greatest games I've ever experienced because you don't play this game, you read it. 50% RPG 50% Point and Click adventure, somebody please throw this team just enough cash to keep them hungry enough to keep making games like this one or other stories set in this world, this game runs at the intellectual and emotion intensity level of the canning factory scene from What Became of Edith Finch if you play it like a homicide detective, I pretended that I was Detective Joe Kenda: Homicide Hunter half the time and Shawn Spencer from Psych the other half, totally worked, I always did my job correctly, I always chose the goofy dialogue options or the ones that had to do with paranormal stuff to try to make my partner laugh, I punched out a dude 14 inches taller than me and the ugliest 12 year old ever drawn, both deserved it, both had 3 times the speech options after I did it. 8.5/10 because act 3 abused my pysche, but I still really want to talk about it and love watching the team talk about it, it's been an interesting dialectic to tame. Disco Inferno! (Hit the button)
@@beveryofa2546 Only thing I would change is it's 50% Personality Test and 50% Point and Click adventure
The next 4 games then
"If the video game swindle doesn't work for me, I'm back to sniffing fentanyl" - LMAO no wonder the script of the game is so damn funny
Hei kaveri, you forgot the "in Ida-Virumaa" part.
Oh by the end they give up the protagonist's name. Woops.
@@MikaelMarius what that means ?
@@bernardo00124719 Just a geographical region in Estonia. I'm Finnish and our languages are related, so basically my comment was just an in-joke.
@@MikaelMarius Oh nice! is fentanyl like a drug of choice in estonia or like super available? just curious.
i remember laughing at this thinking that the developers were full of themselves when i actually played it i was speachless i cant believe how good the game turned out to be
The game could have easily come off as pretentious or full of itself but it really didn't.
@@Graknorke It's because they focused on making it funny and snappy as well as being serious.
Honestly has some of the best RP in an RPG I’ve played in a long time. The skills matter hard, with extra details being missed with no notification if you don’t have the right ones high enough. Skills being too low can make you fail checks, but having too much of a skill leads it to dominate the inner dialogue and give you advice all the time instead of just when it’s needed. Maxing out everything make you a high strung mess with a dozen voices in your head trying tot all over each other. Sometimes, rarely, you might not want to succeed a skill check, since choosing the action isn’t a good idea in the first place. Although it’s clear how dialogue trees proceed, you don’t want to clear every option like it’s Skyrim, since some choices are inappropriate or create penalties to related skill checks.
It’s really absurd how many man hours went into inserting the absurd amount of words and effects into the things the player does. I like the writing too, but I’m very, very impressed with the game part of this video game.
Disco Elysium is a true masterpiece of art. THANK YOU!
I agree, it sits exactly on the fine line between game and art.
One of the most striking things to me is that I never even thought about my skill specs while playing. I just thought “I guess I’ll put another in X” and didn’t stress about it. Very important to have that ease of decision in an RPG.
If I had seen the title before playing the game, I likely would've thought the devs to be egomaniacs. Having played the game, I think they're impressively humble.
they literally kinda put their story in a side quest of the game, about a game company that went bankrupt because wanted to make a revolutionary game. The good thing is that in real life they didn't went bankrupt.
@@Honorio-nz4ts they didn't, but a worse alternative has happened since you wrote this comment.
7:40
Wow, drops a spaghetti so casually in an interview.
I look up to him.
The game is the best piece of art I've experienced in the last ~ 5 years.
Absolute masterpiece. So deep and relatable.
Wow, nice to see you here! Been watching and reading from you on science channels (I need to catch up on that though). Greetings from Estonia!
@@musaire hey-hey, hello to Estonia from Belarus. Thanks bro.
That's an interesting interview about a game if I ever watched one.
True that
Hell yeah it was, playing disco elysium right now, it is art.
Huge fan of his first example of a story hook being "Mom's Spaghetti"
I think that was his explanation of what "8. mile" means as a metaphor for a "big opportunity moment". hilarious either way :)
I kinda wish I could work with these guys. Game looks really cool.
What a brilliant, creative bunch of people. I can't wait to see what they're doing next.
Apparently a TV series.
Loving the world of Disco Elysium.
The caption is wrong. It's not Aleksander Rostov. It's Argo Tuulik.
I wonder if they'll every change that
@@Ptaku93 Doesnt look like it. Poor guy.
"There's a kind of anxiety to being alive" Never a truer word said.
"...it can't be cyberpunk."
Damn, hearing those words in 2021 feels so good!
Cyberpunk was a tabletop game before it was a video game
@@cgijokerman5787 cyberpunk was a genre of sci fi literature in the 80s before it was a tabletop game
for me, that's the first setting ever in which I wouldn't mind playing a game with a different protagonist and a different story
I've noticed many people in the west think of eastern europeans as drunks or don't think much about them at all, but I hope as more people play this game they discover a new way of looking at topics such as politics and culture, that these things are not absolutes and you are free to entertain thoughts that might challenge your view without bursting with the anger that seems so comon these days, and that discussions between people of opposing views are not debates that need to be "won" for your prefered side, people grow by exchanging ideeas and things like deplatforming and canceling are toxic to the progress of thought
Typical western arrogance
thats just Internet cringelords who cry about WODKA AND STALKEEEER
There are some VERY deep people in Eastern Europe. They will not smile in your face at first but they can become your best friend.
It's just the effect of propaganda during the multiple generations long cold war era, we just have to deal with it both on the western and on the eastern sides of the fallen Berlin wall.
Maybe we'll be done with it by the years 2150? Hopefully!
Robert Kurvitz saved my life.
Love how politically open the writer is and how he mentions the fascism of cops, can't wait to play as a communist cop haha!
Yeah, sounds topical given Hong Kong.
Or a right wing fascist cop. More common.
@Ναζωραῖος yes and capitalism is headed by saints like Donald Trump :)
Hobocop is the only way to go!
@@vitorgross9254 Would you rather live under Donald Trump or the current Chinese government?
Having thought all of my life, that gaming is stupid and usually a waste of time, I see that I need to become a gamer myself after hearing this intelligent discussion by the Estonian narrative game developers. Thanks Argo and Robert!
"What happens when you're aiming to create the best RPG of all time?" I guess in this case you pull it off
Enjoyed the guy brooding next to him
man what a game they literally made a great and memorable character out of a tie and you can easily miss it I would have missed it if I didn't read about it online at this point they are just flexing with their writing talents
21:35 The Man from Hjemdall?
Thanks for the game Zaum! My conceptualization only gives me good jokes. So I always tell every one to everyone.
...and it becomes one of the best indeed.
The best thing about this game is that ALL of the players dialog is _technically_ said in that trailer voice. That's hobocops voice. Oh no :D
Reptilian brain
Dude seems like a proponent of the idea that games are art; games as literature.
This is the best game I played in my life and one of the coolest and most disco experiences I ever had
This game is pornographically awesome.
@HandyMan101 TO THE MEGA!!!
so... not Aleksander Rostov. 34:45 and 38:15
Who the hell was that? Is the other one really Robert Kurvitz?
Any detectives over there who can help me solve this? Anyone??
Argo Tuulik
"If there are any developers here, please make your skills characters who talk to you."
YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME TWICE.
21:51 Ida-Virumaa is a soul place :D You just gotta know the right spots.
Electrochemistry is the Antagonist.
rad pfp, trans rights
This game is brilliant. 10/10.
I absolutely loved this! These guys are amazing.
my new favourite developers name checking my all time favourite developers (ice pick lodge) makes me incredibly happy
Which of their games would you recommend?
Awesome talk.
I've always thought that one of the characters in the game looked a lot like brett anderson and hearing them talk about suede in this interview makes me think the likeness was intentional
The nervous laughter from the interviewer when Robert said "Cops have a tendency to be fascist" was priceless
he should have added 'and blacks have a tendency to be racist' (Measurehead)
while kojima is talking loudly how he creates a new genre of games - they just did it with disco elysium.
and yet both parties create intelligent and innovative works of art.
It's an RPG. It Iterates on RPG hallmarks and cliches in different ways.
while disco elysium is one of the best crpgs I have ever played it isn't exactly a new genre however i haven't seen a better skills system ever before its really perfection. your game doesn't have to be a new genre to be ground breaking disco elysium is ground breaking, unusual and fun at the same time unlike you know some *other* games
I hope this universe continues on, a published Disco Elysium TTRPG & more games are my dream!!!
Best videogame I've ever played
It's incredible how confident they were in what they made when it hadn't even come out.
Dude is kind of pulling off the young Harrier look
33:30 the moment I decided to buy the game
I guess some people don't like the freedom to be communist/fascist/etc in the game because they would like the game to not allow players to choose believes they think to be intolerant.
This is a line of discourse I have not seen anywhere. Bit weird to insinuate this is a big point of criticism out there?
@@CanelaAguila sadly it is. I’ve seen many people write it off as “commie propaganda” not realizing that you don’t need to align with that ideology at all.
@@mixmaster6827 funniest part is that it criticizes ALL the ideologies that you choose. Your thoughts both give you negatives and positives to all sides. Hell, even choosing NO idealogy, it criticizes you for doing so.
@@mixmaster6827 Yep, I've seen multiple people online who are on the fence start posts by saying "should I buy this game or is it just communist gibberish". So much for the tolerant right
@@hazardousjazzgasm129 To be fair, I don't think the right ever claimed to be tolerant, just that the left isn't tolerant.
Poor guy on the left can’t get a word in.
21:48 welp...
Could you update the name of the person on the left? I understand it’s not Aleksandr Rostov..?
Did he just throw the “gamer” meme around?
Very late comment here, but Rostov is not present on the stage. I would suggest editing the description to include Argo Tuulik. Not a good look, especially after not even knowing who he is up there with the camera rolling..
Wait, 1:27 what's going on there? I finished the game several times, but never seen anything like that
its Kaneda?
hey, you have completely misidentified argo tuulik as alexander rostov. are you intending to fix this aspect of the video?
Wait. Are there pen and paper rules for the dysco Elysium system?
Essentially, the creator's said that they made each character as if they were also dealing with roll checks to make them more believable
The guy on the left isn't Aleksander Rostov. So who is he?
Argo Tuulik
is that kim jung gi's art?
no. Alexander Rostov.
GOTY
18:00-20:18
weird to see them talking to an audience that has no idea how good the game will be yet
nice interview, thanks to the guests, but the journalist looked unprepared with his half-baked question one would struggle to work with.
هل اللعبة تستحق اللعب
ايه بس يبيلك اتعرف انجليزي
Yes I highly recommend this game
They gave up the protagonist's name, by the end.. woops
Not exactly
imagine having no idea what you are about to get into....
Really good game, but the ending was kinda anticlimactic
I feel that was a deliberate choice though as it did tie everything together and made sense in the context of the world that you explore throughout the game.
If you do all of the cryptozoology quests and interrogate everyone about the history of the city it definitely is supported by what you learn before you solve the case.
I did feel that the game could have done with a new game plus mode where you can play through a remixed version of the game with higher stats and with your character being aware of the outcome of the investigation but I can understand why that wasn't done.
All the same I can understand why it would have been a bit underwhelming after some of the crazier, more dramatic stuff that comes about in the latter part of the game only to find out that in the end the solution to the mystery had very little to do with the events that followed the murder and instead was because of conflicts that happened before your character was even born.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 Meh, that's still no excuse. You don't have to sacrifice plot for the sake of the themes, truly great writing would manage to keep both
@@hazardousjazzgasm129 that's a matter of opinion.
The whole point of the ending is that the little adventure Harry went on doesn't magically fix all his problems.
Harry was a terrible person and a week of doing decent police work isn't going to make everyone forgive him.
Fiction often presents these sorts of redemption stories uncritically and I think about what this ending says about that narrative convention much more than I would have if the ending had made me feel like I had put the answers together based on good detective work and left off with Harry ready to continue as a new man.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 That's not what I mean, I'm fine with all that. The whole feigned plot twist of the killer being some loner isolationist who was completely divorced from nearly every aspect of the investigation was contrived. I was more than ok with where Harry ends up at the end
@Kyle schroeder No counter-point detected
Would be nice if they truly finished the game.
What do you mean?
The game is fully finished
GUESS WHAT?
I come from the future. It is finished. It is a masterpiece.
Yes baby, proud to be from Estonia!
I kinda wish this game wasn't communist
... It's not...
You don't have to play as a communist cop if you don't want, and you can also play as a fascist cop so I wouldn't call the game "communist".
@@naturalunnaturalYeah as an estonian everything I've read about these guys indicates they would much rather be from Portland.
@@J3n50 so is this game basically "woke" or what?
@@gongal 2 hours in, it looks like you can role-play as "woke" or "anti-woke" here
Hahahaha I find funny to point out that in communist country he would be blacklisted or in jail for making game like this :-D
I'd say one of the game's big themes is that ideology is a complicated thing, and hard to say what it even means. Like every character in DE who has a strong take on politics has some deep contradictions to it, and that's just kind of the nature of the beast. Joyce is an ultra liberal who has a high position in a global shipping company, but she's also proud of Revachol and would have preferred it to remain independent under the Communards. Evrart is a solid Union man who talks about wanting to help the working man, and he does genuinely seem to be intending to, but he also wants to enrich himself through underhanded tactics and his plan is basically to create a new company that's just nicer to its workers without really fixing the reasons why things are bad in the first place. And the last true Communist is supposed to be ideologically devoted to the liberation of the people yet simultaneously hates those people with a passion.
So basically your conceotion of "communism is when you're the USSR" is kind of dumb and ineffectual against people who've obviously thought about matters of ideology a lot deeper than that.
@@Graknorke So ignoring the USSR, do we want to talk about China? Cambodia? Zimbabwe? Or maybe one of the South American dictatorships?
I can keep going if you need me to~
@@Canadish which south american dictatorships are u referring to exactly? the one in guatemla that the us helped put into place in a violent coup after a democratically elected socialist took office? or maybe u are referring to pinochet, who was put into power by a us-backed military junta. of course u arent because those dont fit ur narrative, ur likely referring to castro, who was widely loved by his people except for the ultra rich that he took the land back from. conditions for the general popilation in cuba objectively got better under castro and almost all lasting problems can be attributed to sanctions and sabotage attampts the us put into place for fear that global working class mught realize their conditions could actually change. ur a product of mindless propaganda. id highly suggest u read about thomas sankara as well.
@@Canadish you do know that the game criticises all the ideologies you can choose, right?
@@Canadish Ok, go. Keep on going then lmao