Logic (Medium – Failure):

Dancing With Myself? Really? A Billy Idol reference in 2026? That’s how you want to kick this off?

Composure (Easy – Success):

It’s a good reference. And a good callback to the overall themes of the game. It works. Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot.

Encyclopedia (Easy – Success):

Disco Elysium was originally released in 2019 by ZA/UM for Windows, later arriving on macOS in 2020 and consoles in 2021 under the subtitle The Final Cut. Much later, the game also found its way to Android in 2025.

Rhetoric (Medium – Failure):

Are you… are you just reading Wikipedia right now? Is this plagiarism?

Authority (Easy – Success):

Under the Fair Use and Copyright Act, copyrighted material may be used for criticism or educational purposes. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the law before opening your mouth.

Perception (Easy – Success):

Does that actually apply here?

Encyclopedia (Easy – Success):

We are getting laughably off track.

Disco Elysium is a role-playing game set in the open world city of Revachol. You play as Detective Harry Du Bois: alcoholic, drug addict, amnesiac, and all-around disappointment of a human being. A man long past his prime, if he ever had one at all.

Empathy (Easy – Success):

That feels unnecessarily cruel.

Encyclopedia (Easy – Success):

Perhaps.

You awaken in a trashed hotel room following yet another chemically assisted blackout. After a brief but humiliating side quest to recover your missing clothes, you head downstairs and meet your assigned partner: Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi.

Kim is everything Harry is not: professional, composed, quietly competent. And yet, in fleeting moments, shards of the man Harry used to be poke through the fog. A sharp observation. A flash of insight. A reminder that this wasn’t always how things were.

Electrochemistry (Challenging – Failure):

All this talk of hangovers and drug-induced amnesia is making me both sick and desperate for a drink. I need a fucking cigarette.

Savoir Faire (Medium – Success):

Picture it, though—meeting Kim for the first time with a heater dangling from our mouth. The grizzled vet, the clean-cut rookie. Instant chemistry. Iconic. Oh, what could’ve been.

Half Light (Easy – Success):

You really have a talent for losing the thread in these reviews, don’t you? No wonder Race to Git Gud keeps stalling out. Whatever happened to Princess Katia, huh?

Visual Calculus (Formidable – Success):

Here’s the point. The reason for the game. You and Kim are here to solve a murder.

A man hangs from a tree in the yard behind the hostel. He’s been dead for days. Skin bloated. Flesh rotting. Muddy footprints surround the scene. This wasn’t a suicide. Was it a lynching? A warning? Maybe. Something messier?

To find answers, you’ll need every tool at your disposal—reconstructing bullet trajectories, analyzing wounds, following footprints, interrogating witnesses, piecing together truth from contradiction. Disco Elysium doesn’t ask if you can solve the case. It asks what kind of person you become while trying.

Esprit de Corps (Easy – Failure):

You’ll also need to properly document your work. Paperwork is the best part of any video game experience.

Rhetoric (Easy – Success):

I don’t even know where to begin dismantling that sentence.

Drama (Medium – Success):

Allow me to return us to the spotlight.

Disco Elysium is minimalist in its mechanics, but maximalist in its intent. Every choice branches outward, forming a winding path through ideology, morality, and self-perception. With Kim at your side—steady, patient, human—you pursue justice while untangling the knotted mess of Harry’s psyche. Each revelation pulls another strand loose, exposing past failures, broken relationships, and the lingering question of whether redemption is even possible.

Interfacing (Easy – Success):

Mechanically, the game uses its attributes as active participants. Each skill can interject during conversations or perception checks, with dice rolls determining success or failure. That little green success glow, paired with the soft unlocking click? Deeply satisfying. Almost sinful.

Endurance (Medium – Failure):

You really need haptic feedback to feel anything anymore? I miss when games had one button and televisions slowly cooked your retinas.

Physical Instrument (Medium – Failure):

The only feedback I need is someone appreciating these guns.

Inland Empire (Formidable – Success):

Finish the review today or you never will. No one waits around forever.

Conceptualization (Challenging– Success):

Every conversation in Revachol reveals new paths. New truths. New lies. I won’t spoil this landmark of interactive storytelling, but I will say this…

Rhetoric (Medium – Failure):

Whoa, hold on. Landmark? You’re putting this next to Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment? That’s a bold claim.

Perception (Easy – Success):

Robert Kurvitz, the writer, has cited both Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment as direct inspirations.

Conceptualization (Easy – Success):

…and that influence shows. The dialogue is exceptional, dense with meaning and possibility. The painterly watercolor visuals clash beautifully with the grounded realism of the world. Revachol feels tired, bruised, and alive. Like a tender wound. And the soundtrack…

Reaction Speed (Medium – Success):

British Sea Power! Say it!

Conceptualization (Easy – Success):

…by British Sea Power ties the entire experience together in a neat little package. It propels you forward without demanding attention, lingering just enough to haunt you once you’ve stepped away.

Electrochemistry (Easy – Success):

Heh. You said “neat little package.”

Volition (Easy – Success):

You are a child.

Electrochemistry (Easy – Failure):

Nuh uh.

Empathy (Medium – Success):

What Harry feels, you feel. What he regrets, you carry. What begins as a strange, almost comedic buddy-cop story slowly transforms into a meditation on failure, friendship, and survival. What lengths will man go to survive? What lies will he convince himself are actually truths? By the time the credits roll, Disco Elysium feels less like a game you completed and more like a place you lived.

Drama (Easy – Success):

And for that reason, I award Disco Elysium the most prestigious honor in gaming: the Top Shelf Game Award. Bask in it. Breathe it in. You’ve earned it.

Inland Empire (Legendary – Success):

Why does this award always go to indie games?

Suggestion (Medium – Failure):

You should redistribute some of those awards to more deserving AAA studios. Indie games get all the breaks.

Pain Threshold (Easy – Success):

You should buy a better keyboard. This one is actively destroying your wrists. Wrap it up and finish strong.

Rhetoric (Easy – Success):

In an already rarefied tier of games, Disco Elysium stands apart. For what it sets out to do, it may be the best there is. There’s a reason so many consider it one of the greatest games ever made. While some of the mechanics may be frustrating and some of the failures may seem punishing, nothing is damaging enough to keep you from pushing onward.

Shivers (Medium – Success):

You’ll return to Revachol again and again. Trapping Harry in the loop for your own curiosity. Sick bastard.

Savoir Faire (Easy – Success):

Whew. Done and dusted. Another killer review. That’s why WOTS is the best in the business.

Electrochemistry (Easy – Failure):

So… shots to celebrate? Anyone? Hello?