Disco Elysium and the Future of the Novel (featuring Writer’s Anguish and Parenting).

A true game changer?

I’m about one-third into my first playthrough of Disco Elysium - The Final Cut (I’m quite aware of how late I am to the party), and I’ve fallen completely in love with it. And by it, I mean not only its story but every single component that makes up the experience, from the heartbreaking OST by Sea Power to Alexander’s Rostov glorious milky concept art that you can peruse if you’re one of the lucky ones to own the special edition of the game that includes, quite possibly, my most coveted item at the moment: Disco Elysium’s art book.

While reading the first chapter in digital form written by the game’s lead designer/lead writer, Robert Kurtiz, his struggles during the writing process and in his own life struck me like a mace wielded by a Minotaur filled with regrets. As a struggling writer born the same year as him, I felt so related, and it was pretty overwhelming.   

But it was not only his story about the many rewrites Disco Elysium went through and the hardships that came along with them but also his overconfidence that the novel –especially serialized ambitious works like Lord of the Rings– is out and the RPG is in. He claims an RPG is more challenging to write since it’s more massive and complex, and it’s the future of the written story. Confound it all! I mean, this is coming from the guy who successfully merged literature with video games for what I believe is the first time

His words opened a world of possibilities as a storyteller and longtime RPG fan. Could literature, my joie de vivre, merge itself with the RPG, the haven where I sought shelter from a troubled home as a kid, and be considered –by no other than myself– a worthy endeavor? A real-world quest? 

I haven’t been able to stop my head from spinning these past weeks, thinking: could it be possible to write a novel that’s ALSO an RPG? Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar comes to mind as a very early prototype of a choose-your-own-adventure meets great literature. But could the novel be taken further? Yet this is barely the surface of what’s possibly an entirely new approach to storytelling through one glorious, perhaps overwhelming, journey into uncharted territory.

Following Kurtiz’s chapter is the one penned by Rostov, the game’s Art Director and Conceptual Artist. In it, he calls Craig Mullins his first inspiration and talks about how growing up in the “post-apocalypse,” the ruins of the Soviet Union, shaped him as an artist. He then details how his technique’s shortcomings helped create the sublime visual style masterfully translated into the game’s graphics.

Then, more chapters by other people involved with the game's development continue to narrate how a project no one in their right mind would’ve backed came to be and took the gaming industry by storm. Much as Mark Borg did for the TTRPG, Disco Elysium did it for the CRPG; both are rule-breaking endeavors born of passionate minds that twisted the rules of their respective media to their heart’s content (Disco Elysium has NO combat). 

I haven’t finished the game nor read all the art book –there is also Kurvitz’s novel to read, set in the same world as Disco Elysium¹– but the whole experience has confronted me with the question of what exactly am I to do as an unpublished writer at this point in my life as all the wasted time and the consequences of my choices stare back at me from the mirror (oh gods! the game’s opening quote, taken from a poem by Welsh poet R.S. Thomas, reads: “The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water if deep enough can drown).

These days, I feel like the alcoholic detective in this game. I, too, hear a chorus of voices, and most of my waking hours feel like I’m rolling D20 checks for every consequential decision in my life or even the trivial ones that my sleep-deprived brain confuses for the former. Especially when caring for my son, I realize that every word I say, and everything I do in front of him leaves a lasting impression on his already impressionable mind. But I guess parenthood is just like this game. No one in their right mind would pursue it, bet on it, or back it, but we did/do it anyway, and the final result makes all the sense in the world. At least to me. And to my Inland Empire, too. Best not to forget about it? Him? Right?

P.S. It was unfortunate for me to read about the drama that followed the departure of the core team from ZA/UM, Disco Elysium’s developer and publisher. I don’t know all the details, nor am I interested in going there (although, ironically, it involves a very “capitalist” lawsuit), but whatever did happen, people suffered and lost not only their jobs but also the rights to their creation, killing in the process any hope for the continuation of this inexplicably beautiful world. There’s always hope for a spiritual successor, but it’s never really the same, is it?

1. There’s no official English translation, but you can find a fan-made one online.