Disco Elysium takes place in the seaside district of a fictional city still recovering from a revolution that occurred decades prior to the game's start. Players take the role of an amnesiac detective who has been tasked with solving a murder mystery. During the investigation, he comes to recall events about his own past as well as current forces trying to affect the city. Disco Elysium was released for Windows in October 2019 and macOS in April 2020. An expanded version of the game featuring full voice acting and new content, subtitled The Final Cut, was released for consoles in 2021, alongside a free update for the PC and macOS versions.
Disco Elysium is a non-traditional role-playing game featuring very little combat. Instead, events are resolved through skill checks and dialogue trees via a system of 24 skills that represents different aspects of the protagonist, such as his perception and pain threshold. In addition, a system called the Thought Cabinet represents his other ideologies and personality traits, with players having the ability to freely support or suppress them. The game is based on a tabletop role-playing game setting that Kurvitz had previously created, later forming ZA/UM in 2016 to adapt it into a video game.
Disco Elysium has been cited as among the greatest video games ever made, with its narrative and art being praised. It won a number of awards from several publications, including Game of the Year. A television series adaptation was announced to be in development in 2020.[1]
Gameplay
Gameplay screenshot showing conversations in white and choices in orange, atop the current scene the character is in
Disco Elysium is a role-playing video game that features an open world and dialogue-heavy gameplay mechanics.[2][3] The game is presented in an isometric perspective in which the player character is controlled.[4] The player takes the role of a detective, who suffers from alcohol and drug-induced amnesia, on a murder case.[5] The player can move the detective about the current screen to interact with non-player characters (NPC) and highlighted objects or move onto other screens. Early in the game they gain a partner, Kim Kitsuragi, another detective who acts as the protagonist's voice of professionalism and who may be able to offer advice or support in certain dialogue options. Other NPCs may be influenced to become temporary companions that join the group and provide similar support.
The gameplay features no combat in the traditional sense; instead, it is handled through skill checks and dialogue trees.[6] There are four primary abilities in the game: Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics. Each ability has six distinct secondary skills for a total of 24.[7] The player improves these skills through skill points earned from leveling up. The choice of clothing that the player equips on the player-character can impart both positive and negative effects on certain skills.[6] Upgrading these skills helps the player character pass skill checks, based on a random dice roll, but potentially result in negative effects and character quirks, discouraging minmaxing. For instance, a player character with high Drama may be able to detect and fabricate lies effectively, but may also become prone to hysterics and paranoia. Likewise, high Electrochemistry shields the player character from the negative effects of drugs and provides knowledge on them, but may also lead to substance abuse and other self-destructive, self-gratifying behaviors.[7]
Disco Elysium features a secondary inventory system known as the "Thought Cabinet". Thoughts are unlockable through conversations with other characters, as well as through internal dialogues within the mind of the player character himself. The player is then able to "internalize" a thought through a certain amount of in-game hours, which, once completed, grants the player character permanent benefits but also occasionally negative effects, a concept that ZA/UM compared to the trait system used in the Fallout series.[8] A limited number of slots are available in the Thought Cabinet at the start, though more can be gained with experience levels. For example, an early possible option for the Thought Cabinet is the "Hobocop" thought, in which the character ponders the option of living on the streets to save money, which reduces the character's composure with other NPCs while the thought is internalized. When the character has completed the Hobocop thought, it allows them to find more junk on the streets that can be sold for money.[9][10]
The 24 skills also play into the dialogue trees, creating a situation where the player-character may have an internal debate with one aspect of their mind or body, creating the idea that the player is communicating with a fragmented persona. These internal conversations may provide suggestions or additional insight that can guide the player into actions or dialogue with the game's non-playable characters, depending on the skill points invested into the skill. For example, the Inland Empire, a subskill of the Psyche, is described by ZA/UM as a representation of the intensity of the soul, and may come into situations where the player-character may need to pass themselves off under a fake identity with the conviction behind that stance, should the player accept this suggestion when debating with Inland Empire.[11]
Synopsis
Setting
Disco Elysium takes place in the fantastic realist world of Elysium, developed by Kurvitz and his team in the years prior, which includes over six thousand years of history.[8] The fiction has been constructed with attention to the theory of historical materialism, which posits that, even if the details were different, human history would play out in a similar way.[12]
The game takes place in the year '51 of the Current Century. Elysium is made of "isolas", masses of land and sea that are separated from each other by the Pale, an inscrutable, mist-like "connective tissue" in which the laws of reality break down. Prolonged exposure to the Pale can cause mental instability and eventually death, and traversing the Pale, which is typically done with aerostatics, is heavily regulated due to the danger.[13]
Events in the game take place in the impoverished district of Martinaise within the city of Revachol on the isola of Insulinde, the "New New World".[2][13]Forty-nine years before the events of the game, a wave of communist revolutions swept multiple countries; the Suzerainty of Revachol, a monarchy that up to that point had been Elysium's preeminent superpower, was overthrown and replaced by a commune. Six years later, the Commune of Revachol was toppled by an invading alliance of moralist-capitalist nations called "the Coalition". Revachol was designated a Special Administrative Region and remains firmly under Coalition control decades later. One of the few governmental responsibilities that the Coalition concedes to the people of Revachol is policing, which is carried out by the Revachol Citizens Militia (RCM), a voluntary citizens' brigade turned semiprofessional police force.[citation needed]
Plot
The player character wakes up in a trashed hostel room in Martinaise with a severe hangover and no memory of his own identity due to an extreme case of drug-induced amnesia. He meets Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, who informs him that they have been assigned to investigate the death of a hanged man in an empty lot behind the hostel. The victim's identity is unclear and initial analysis of the scene indicates that he was lynched by a group of people. The detectives explore the rest of the district, following up on leads while helping residents with a variety of tasks. In the course of the investigation, the player character learns that he is a decorated RCM detective, Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor[nb 1] Harrier "Harry" Du Bois. Harry experienced an event several years ago that began a midlife crisis, and on the night he was assigned to the hanged man case, he finally snapped and embarked on a self-destructive three-day bender around Martinaise.
Harry and Kim discover the hanged man killing is connected to an ongoing strike by the Martinaise dockworkers' union against the Wild Pines Group, a major logistics corporation. They interview union boss Evrart Claire and Wild Pines negotiator Joyce Messier. Joyce reveals that the hanged man was Colonel Ellis "Lely" Kortenaer, the commander of a squad of mercenaries sent by Wild Pines to break the strike. She warns that the rest of the mercenaries have gone rogue and will likely seek retribution for Lely's death.
Harry and Kim discover that Lely was killed before the hanging, and the Hardie Boys, a group of dockworkers who act as vigilantes, claim responsibility for the murder. They assert that Lely attempted to rape a hostel guest named Klaasje. When questioned, Klaasje reveals that Lely was shot in the mouth while the two were having consensual sex. Unable to figure out the origin of the bullet and fearful of the authorities due to her past as a corporate spy, Klaasje enlisted the help of a union sympathizer named Ruby, who staged Lely's hanging with the rest of the Hardie Boys. The detectives find Ruby hiding in an abandoned building, where she incapacitates them with a radio wave-based device normally used to aid in traversing the Pale. She claims that the cover-up was Klaasje's idea and has no idea who shot Lely. Harry manages to overcome the Pale device and contemplates arresting Ruby, but she believes Harry to be a corrupt cop and either escapes or kills herself.
Returning to their hostel, the detectives stumble across a standoff between the rogue mercenaries and the Hardie Boys. A firefight breaks out and Harry is wounded, leaving him unconscious for several days. Most or all the mercenaries are killed in the incident, and Kim may also be hospitalized, in which case street urchin Cuno offers to take his place as Harry's partner. The detectives chase down their remaining leads and determine that the shot that killed Lely came from an old fortress on an isle just off of Martinaise's shoreline.
The detectives explore the ruins and find the shooter, a former commissar of the Revachol communist army named Iosef Lilianovich Dros. Iosef reveals that he shot Lely with his sniper rifle in a fit of anger and jealousy; his motivations were born out of his bitterness towards the capitalist system Lely represented, as well as sexual envy for Klaasje. The detectives arrest him for the murder. At this point, an insectoid cryptid known as the Insulindian Phasmid appears from the reeds. It is revealed the Phasmid indirectly set off the chain of events leading to the murder, as the psychoactive chemicals it exudes inadvertently affected the man's mind for years, stoking his fanaticism and resentment. Harry may have a psychic conversation with the Phasmid, who tells him that it is fearful of the notion of his unstable mind, but awed by his ability to continue existing. It also implying to Harry that humanity was the main reason of the Pale existing before it comforts Harry, telling him to move on from the wreck of his life.
Harry and his partner are confronted by his old squad upon their return to Martinaise. They reflect on Harry's actions during the game, particularly whether he solved the case and how he handled the mercenaries. Lieutenant Jean Vicquemare, Harry's usual partner, confirms that Harry's emotional breakdown was the result of his fiancée leaving him years ago. In the best possible outcome, the squad expresses hope that Harry's state will improve in the future, and invites him and either Kim or Cuno to join a special RCM unit.
Development
Disco Elysium was developed by ZA/UM, a company founded in 2016 by Estonian novelist Robert Kurvitz, who served as the game's lead writer and designer.[14][15] Kurvitz since 2001 had been part of a band called Ultramelanhool, and in 2005, while in Tallinn, Estonia, with the group struggling for finances, conceived of a fictional world during a drunken evening while listening to Tiësto's "Adagio for Strings".[16] Feeling they had a solid idea, the group created a collective of artists and musicians, which included oil painter Aleksander Rostov, to expand upon the work of that night and developed a tabletop RPG based on Dungeons & Dragons on this steampunk-like concept.[16] During this period, Kurvitz met Estonian author Kaur Kender who helped him to write a novel set in this world, Sacred and Terrible Air,[15] which was published in 2013 but only sold about one thousand copies. Kurvitz fell into a period of depression and alcoholism for about three years following the book's failing.[16]
Kurvitz eventually managed to overcome this period of alcoholism and helped Kender to also overcome his own alcoholism. As a sign of gratitude, Kender suggested to Kurvitz that instead of pursuing a novel, that he try capturing his world as a video game as to draw a larger interest. Kurvitz had no experience in video games before, but once he had seen artwork of the game's setting of Revachol as easily fitting into an isometric format, as well as Rostov's agreement that they might as well continue taking the risk of failing on a video game together, Kurvitz proceeded with the idea.[16] Kurvitz wrote a concise description of what the game would be: "D&D meets '70s cop-show, in an original 'fantastic realist' setting, with swords, guns and motor-cars. Realised as an isometric CRPG – a modern advancement on the legendary Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate. Massive, reactive story. Exploring a vast, poverty-stricken ghetto. Deep, strategic combat."[16] Kender was impressed by the strong statement, investing into the game's development, with additional investment coming from friends and family.[16] The game was announced as an upcoming 2017 game under the title No Truce With the Furies,[16] taken from the poem "Reflections" by R.S. Thomas and published in Thomas' No Truce with the Furies in 1995.[17]
Kurvitz established the ZA/UM team to create the game, using the name "za um", a reference to the Zaum constructed language created by Russian avant-garde poets in the early 1900s. Its name can be read in Russian as a shortcut for "vzyatsya za um" idiom, which is similar to the English idea of bootstrapping. The use of all-capitals and the slash symbol is to present the team as "something that definitely exists and weighs eight tonnes".[16] Work on the game started around 2016, with the local team living in a squat in a former gallery in Tallinn. They were able to secure venture capital into the game during that first year which allowed Kurvitz to seek out the English band Sea Power for their music for the game's soundtrack. While in Birmingham to speak to the band, Kurvitz realised England was a better location for the main development team as there were more local resources for both development and for voice-overs.[16] During development, some of the staff relocated from Estonia to London and Brighton, with other designers working out of Poland, Romania, and China.[18][19] Overall, by the time of the game's release, ZA/UM had about 20 outside consultants and 35 in-house developers,[16] with a team of eight writers assisting Kurvitz in the game's dialogue.[18][20] The majority of the game's funding was provided by Estonian businessman Margus Linnamäe.[19][21] The game uses the Unity engine.[22]
As originally planned, the game was to focus on action in a single city location to make the 2017 release. However, as ZA/UM had indicated to investors that this was to be a game that spanned a larger world, they found the need to spread beyond that single location, forcing them to delay the game's release, along with the name change to Disco Elysium.[16] This title plays on a few double meanings related to the word "disco"; in one sense, it refers to ideas that briefly gain the spotlight before burning out similar to the fad of disco music, and reflected in the protagonist's clothing style, while in a more literal sense, "disco" is Latin for "I learn", thus reflecting on the protagonist's overcoming his amnesia to learn about the world of Elysium. Kurvitz had always anticipated the No Truce title to be more of a working title and wanted to reserve it for when they had bundled Disco Elysium with a second planned game.[17] Though ZA/UM had initially planned to publish the game through Humble Bundle, they ultimately chose to self-publish it.[23]
Design, voices, and influences
The game's art, drawn mostly in a painterly style, was led by Aleksander Rostov, while the game's soundtrack was written by the English band British Sea Power.[24][25] The voice-acting cast includes metal musicians Mikee Goodman of SikTh and Mark Holcomb of Periphery.[16][26] The original release also had voice-acting by Dasha Nekrasova of the cultural commentary podcast Red Scare[27] and four of the hosts from the political satire podcast Chapo Trap House;[24][28] these would later be replaced in The Final Cut.[29]
ZA/UM cited several works that influenced the writing and style of Disco Elysium. One major influence is the 1999 video game Planescape: Torment, which, like Disco Elysium, features an amnesiac player character, heavily emphasises dialogue, and is rendered isometrically.[30] The television show The Wire was also used as an influence for the game's working class setting, while Émile Zola's writings shared stories on the misery of human life that narrative writer Helen Hindpere said she felt resonated within the game.[30] Other works that influenced Disco Elysium included the video game Kentucky Route Zero; television shows True Detective and The Shield; the literary works of Dashiell Hammett, China Miéville, and the Strugatsky brothers; and artists Rembrandt, Ilya Repin, Jenny Saville, Alex Kanevsky, and Wassily Kandinsky.[31] The creators have also said that their work owes a lot to the Estonian urbanist poet Arvi Siig. Kurvitz said while accepting the Estonian President's Young Cultural Figure annual award for 2020 "Without his modernism, Elysium – the world the game is placed in – would not be half of what it is." He also said Siig's vision of an international, radical and humanist Estonian culture lives on in Disco Elysium.[32]
Kurvitz said that an aim was to have a full, complex depth of choices and outcomes, limited by the practicalities of game development. Knowing they could not realistically cover all possible choices, Kurvitz and his team instead focused more on what he called "microreactivity", small acts and decisions the player may make such as an embarrassing comment, and how that may propagate throughout events. The dialogue of the player's various skills helped then to provide critique and internalization of how these small decisions had larger effects on the game world, so that the player would become more aware of such choices in the future.[33] An additional factor in writing was the recognition that there was no real solution to the game; while the player may resolve some portions of the story, the primary case is nearly unworkable, similar to the rest of Revachol. They created the companion Kim as a no-nonsense character to help keep the player on track of resolving some part of the game and recognizing that there were some story threads they simply could not fix or resolve.[33]
The Final Cut
An expanded and reworked edition of the game, subtitled The Final Cut, was announced in December 2020.[34][35] According to lead writer Helen Hindpere, The Final Cut was directed based on input from players of the original game. It included complete voicework for the nearly 100 characters including the game's narration and the player-character skills, encompassing over 1.2 million words according to Hindpere. Because of the importance of the characters to the game, ZA/UM kept voice directing in-house rather than outsourcing the task as typically done with RPG games of this nature.[36][37] It took about fourteen months to complete the global casting and recording processing for the additional voice overs. While they brought back some of the prior voice actors who had read introductory dialogue lines in conversation trees for their respective characters, ZA/UM sought out new voice actors they felt were a better fit for many roles, especially for minor characters. They came upon jazz musician Lenval Brown for the voice of the narrator and of the player skills, representing nearly half of the game's dialogue, and considered him essential to The Final Cut.[38] Brown spent about eight months with the vocal directors in recording his lines, keeping his voice otherwise constant, slow and meticulous for all of the different characters skills since these were explaining things to the player, but including small nuances to try to distinguish the various facets of each skill's personality.[39] The voice-acting by Nekrasova and the Chapo Trap House hosts was completely replaced.[29]The Final Cut allows players the option to use a selection of voice acting for the game, such as only having the narrator's voiceover while the other characters presented as text.[37]
There are four quests that were cut from the original game but reworked to explore some of the political implications of the game's story, now called Political Vision Quests. These quests were designed to encourage the player to consider how they have developed their player-character and where their decisions have taken the character, and how committed they are to seeing that out, according to Hindpere.[36][37] Additionally, the expansion includes new art and animations,[36][40] including two additional tracks by Sea Power.[37]
Release
Disco Elysium was first released for Windows on 15 October 2019.[41] The macOS version was released on 27 April 2020.[42] One of the first translations that ZA/UM published was the Chinese version, which was released in March 2020. Its release had to bypass the typical approval process needed to release games in China, since Disco Elysium's content, which included themes of communism, did not meet the Chinese governmental standards. After its release, reviews left by Chinese players indicated that they were drawn to the game, as its story reflected their own experiences with communism.[43] In May 2020, ZA/UM released an update that improved some of the game's performance on lower-end hardware, as well as adding support for additional language translations, which are being developed by the community and by the localization firm Testronic Labs.[44]
After its original release, Kurvitz announced plans for an expansion for the game as well as a full sequel. In addition, a tabletop RPG based on the systems the game used, tentatively titled You Are Vapor, was also announced, with Kurvitz also announcing plans to translate his novel Sacred and Terrible Air in English, which narratively takes place 20 years after the events of Disco Elysium.[45] In June 2020, it was announced that ZA/UM had partnered with production company dj2 Entertainment to develop a television series based on the game.[46] ZA/UM launched a limited edition clothing and artwork line, Atelier, in March 2021, featuring pieces based on the game.[47][48]
The Final Cut
The Final Cut was released on 30 March 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Stadia, and as a free update for existing copies of the game on PC and macOS.[49][50] Versions for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S were released on 12 October 2021.[51][52] While the original game was not submitted for rating for the Australian Classification Board as it was only released digitally for personal computers, the planned console release of The Final Cut required a Board review. The game was refused classification by the Board, making it illegal to sell in the country, due to its depiction of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, and violence, as well as showing "revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency, and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults."[53] The ban was appealed by ZA/UM then subsequently dropped, with the game reclassified to an adults-only R18+ rating and allowed to be sold, as the Board acknowledged that the game provided disincentives related to drug-taking behavior where "regular drug use leads to negative consequences for the player's progression in the game."[54] The game was released by Spike Chunsoft in Japan on 25 August 2022.[55]
Disco Elysium received "universal acclaim" according to review aggregatorMetacritic, with it being praised for its narrative and conversational systems.[2][56][61][59]PC Gamer praised the game for its depth, freedom, customization, and storytelling and called it one of the best RPGs on the PC.[2]IGN praised the game's open world and compared it favorably to The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, despite being much smaller.[59]The Washington Post said that the game is "conspicuously well written".[61]GameSpot awarded it a 10 out of 10, their first perfect score since 2017.[10][62]PCGamesN wrote that the game set new genre standards for exploration and conversation systems.[60] Conversely, Eurogamer criticized the game for not offering enough choice in role-playing and for a distinct lack of focus.[63]
In a review of Disco Elysium in Black Gate, Joshua Dinges said "The nihilistic world is remarkably well fleshed out, the non-player characters earnestly realized, and the myriad plot threads extremely engaging. You may have no idea what to do fifty percent of the time, but will still find yourself spending every available minute of the day carrying out nebulous tasks and exploring your fascinating surroundings. Surroundings which, I will add, are all gorgeously represented in the style of expressionist watercolors."[64]
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut was reviewed by IGN and Game Informer, both of which praised the addition of voice lines and new quests.[79][80] The PlayStation releases were initially found to have game-breaking bugs that made some of the quests impossible to finish.[81][82]
In June 2020, ZA/UM and dj2 Entertainment announced that a television series based on the game was under development.[83]
In October 2022, ZA/UM member Martin Luiga announced that he, Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere of ZA/UM had "involuntarily left the company", stating that ZA/UM "no longer represents the ethos it was founded on." Luiga also affirmed that the ZA/UM cultural association had also been dissolved.[97] In an interview, Luiga stated that the other three members had been fired under false premises.[98] A spokesperson for ZA/UM stated: "Like any video game, the development of Disco Elysium was and still is a collective effort, with every team member's contribution essential and valued as part of a greater whole. At this time, we have no further comment to make other than the ZA/UM creative team's focus remains on the development of our next project, and we are excited to share more news on this with you all soon."[99]
In early November 2022, conflicting reports of the events were announced. According to Kurvitz, Zaum Studio OÜ, the development studio, was originally owned in majority shares by Margus Linnamäe, was then acquired by Tütreke OÜ, a holding company owned by studio CEO Ilmar Kompus through a share purchase in 2021. Kurvitz and Rostov claimed that the funds used for that purchase were pulled from the studio itself, making it a fraudulent purchase, upon which they started to challenge the purchase and recover their IP from the studio.[100] Among Kurvitz' and Rostov's complaints is that Kompus purchased four sketches from Zaum that were establishing the basis for a Disco Elysium sequel for £1, then resold these to Zaum for €4.8 million, effectively helping Kompus regain part of the money spent to acquire Zaum through Tütreke. Kurvitz and Rostov discovered the change in how the company was organized, including their demotion, and were fired when they began raising questions. Kurvitz and Rostov argued that they still have some control of the Disco Elysiumintellectual property rights, and thus should have had a say in blocking the sale.[100][101] Zaum Studio dismissed the charges in a statement, and said that the former employees had been let go for creating a disruptive environment at the studio, claiming that the two had "limited to no engagement in their responsibility and work", as well as verbally abused and discriminated against other employees.[101] Other employees of Zaum Studio speaking anonymously with GamesIndustry.biz claimed the situation lay between these points.[102]
Legal proceedings in the matter were started by Kaur Kender, the executive producer of Disco Elysium. Kender had asked similar questions of the change in Zaum's management, leading to his firing. He filed suit asserting that Kompus owed him €1 million. Kender further asserted that Kompus was aided by Tõnis Haavel, an Estonian investor that had been convicted of fraud and was already €11.5 million in debt. Haavel has a majority share in Yessirnosir Ltd., a United Kingdom subsidiary of Zaum where the Disco Elysium rights are held. An initial hearing in Kender's case, which included statements from Kurvitz, was held in October 2022.[101] By December 2022, Kender had dropped his lawsuit, as Kompus had paid back €4.8 million from Tütreke back to ZA/UM.[103][104] Kurvitz and Rostov still assert that there were illegal actions to take over the development studio leading to their ouster.[104]
The studio issued a statement on 14 March 2023 stating that all legal actions from the former members were concluded. Of Kender, he had "divested all his shares in the studio, repaid all his debts to the studio", and paid for the studio's legal fees under court order. Of Kurvitz and Rostov, the studio alleged that their lawsuit was dropped due to a lack of evidence. Further details of these cases remain confidential.[105] On 17 March 2023, Kurvitz and another former ZA/UM creative, Sandor Taal, responded to this statement by clarifying that the announcement was "wrong and misleading in several respects" and "[sought] to unfairly paint [them] - the remaining minority shareholders in ZA/UM - as mere disgruntled employees." Kurvitz and Taal also stated that their lawsuit regarding employment claims against the studio was dismissed "as part of a larger campaign against [them]" and that they plan to "pursue legal options accordingly."[106][107]
In February 2024, the Swedish gaming agency GLHF reported that ZA/UM was laying off about 25% of its staff and had canceled both a planned sequel and a standalone expansion to Disco Elysium. [108]
Notes
↑ In the fiction, Yefreitor is a rank awarded to officers who decline a promotion.
Related Research Articles
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a 2004 action role-playing video game developed by Troika Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows. Set in White Wolf Publishing's World of Darkness, the game is based on White Wolf's role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and follows a human who is killed and revived as a fledgling vampire. The game depicts the fledgling's journey through early 21st-century Los Angeles to uncover the truth behind a recently discovered relic that heralds the end of all vampires.
Doomguy is the protagonist of the Doom game series by id Software. He was created by American video game designer John Romero and was introduced as the player character in the original 1993 video game Doom. Within the Doom series, Doomguy is a demon hunter space marine dressed in green combat armor who rarely speaks onscreen, and his personality and backstory were intentionally vague to reinforce his role as a player avatar. In Doom Eternal, he is voiced by American voice actor Matthew Waterson, while Jason Kelley voices the character in that game's downloadable content The Ancient Gods: Part Two, and was portrayed by Karl Urban in the 2005 film adaptation. He has appeared in several other games developed by id Software, including Quake Champions and Quake III Arena.
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions, set in a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic world, decades after a nuclear war between the United States and China. Fallout's protagonist, the Vault Dweller, inhabits an underground nuclear shelter. The player must scour the surrounding wasteland for a computer chip that can fix the Vault's failed water supply system. They interact with other survivors, some of whom give them missions, and engage in turn-based combat.
Kaur Kender is an Estonian author and entrepreneur.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) is a media franchise of space western role-playing video games created and developed by BioWare, which have seen releases on the original Xbox, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, OS X, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, IOS and Android. The franchise takes place in the fictional universe of Star Wars by George Lucas.
Doom is an American media franchise created by John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, and Tom Hall. The series usually focuses on the exploits of an unnamed space marine operating under the auspices of the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), who fights hordes of demons and the undead to save Earth from an apocalyptic invasion.
Dark Souls is a 2011 action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware and published by Namco Bandai Games. A spiritual successor to FromSoftware's Demon's Souls, the game is the first in the Dark Souls series. The game takes place in the kingdom of Lordran, where players assume the role of a cursed undead character who begins a pilgrimage to discover the fate of their kind. A port for Windows featuring additional content, known as the Prepare to Die Edition, was released in August 2012. It was also released for consoles under the subtitle Artorias of the Abyss in October 2012.
While the early history and distinctive traits of role-playing video games (RPGs) in East Asia have come from Japan, many video games have also arisen in China, developed in South Korea, and Taiwan.
Nier: Automata is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix. It is a sequel to Nier (2010), itself a spin-off of and sequel to the Drakengard series. Nier: Automata was originally released for the PlayStation 4 and Windows via Steam, and an Xbox One port was published the following year. A Nintendo Switch port was released in 2022.
Indivisible is an action role-playing platform game developed by the now-defunct Lab Zero Games and published by 505 Games. The game was initially released in October 2019 for Linux, macOS, Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One and on April 28, 2020 for Nintendo Switch. It was released in Japan on July 16, 2020. A version for Amazon Luna was released on October 20, 2020, despite Lab Zero Games going defunct 11 days prior, thus discontinuing all additional content for the game.
Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development and localization company specializing in role-playing video games, visual novels and adventure games. The company was founded in 1984 as Chunsoft Co., Ltd. and merged with Spike in 2012. It is owned by Dwango.
Undertale is a 2015 2D role-playing video game created by American indie developer Toby Fox. The player controls a child who has fallen into the Underground: a large, secluded region under the surface of the Earth, separated by a magical barrier. The player meets various monsters during the journey back to the surface, although some monsters might engage the player in a fight. The combat system involves the player navigating through mini-bullet hell attacks by the opponent. They can opt to pacify or subdue monsters in order to spare them instead of killing them. These choices affect the game, with the dialogue, characters, and story changing based on outcomes.
Robert Kurvitz is an Estonian novelist, video game designer, and musician. He was the lead writer and designer of the 2019 video game Disco Elysium as a founding member of the ZA/UM cultural association and the eponymous video game development company that grew out of it. Kurvitz was fired from ZA/UM in 2022 after conflicts arose with Estonian investors who had bought a majority stake in the company.
The Outer Worlds is a 2019 action role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Private Division. The game was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in October 2019, with a Nintendo Switch version released in June 2020.
The Game Awards 2019 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2019. The event was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of The Game Awards, and was held to an invited audience at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2019. The preshow ceremony was hosted by Sydnee Goodman. The event was live streamed across more than 50 digital platforms; it was the first to broadcast live in India and was simulcast in 53 movie theaters across the United States. The show featured musical performances from Chvrches, Grimes, and Green Day, and presentations from celebrity guests including Stephen Curry, Vin Diesel, Norman Reedus, and Michelle Rodriguez. In association with the event, a virtual games festival was held online, allowing free demos to be played through Steam over a 48-hour period.
Crusader Kings III is a grand strategy role-playing video game set in the Middle Ages, developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive as a sequel to Crusader Kings (2004) and Crusader Kings II (2012). The game was released on PC on 1 September 2020 and on the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on 29 March 2022 in most regions. The game received generally positive reviews on release, and has sold over 3 million copies as of September 2023.
Asgard's Wrath is a 2019 action role-playing game developed by Sanzaru Games and published by Oculus Studios for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. In the game, the player assumes control of a Norse god who must guide several mortal heroes to fulfill their destinies. The game received generally positive reviews. Asgard's Wrath 2 was released on the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 in 2023.
Arvi Siig was an Estonian poet, translator and journalist. He was a member of the CPSU and a communist, but still critical of many aspects of the political aspects of his day. His poetry inspired later punk poets and many of his texts are used as lyrics by the Estonian alternative rock band Vennaskond. He was among the first to include modern urban themes in Estonian poetry, also giving a voice to prostitutes, including Soviet prostitutes. The creators of the award-winning computer RPG Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov hailed Siig as inspiration and the greatest Estonian poet when accepting the president's Young Cultural Figure award in 2020: "Without his modernism, Elysium - the world the game is placed in - would not be half of what it is."
A Soulslike is a subgenre of action role-playing games known for high levels of difficulty and emphasis on environmental storytelling, typically in a dark fantasy setting. It had its origin in Demon's Souls and the Dark Souls series by FromSoftware, the themes and mechanics of which directly inspired several other games. Soulslike games developed by FromSoftware themselves have been specifically referred to as Soulsborne games, a portmanteau of Souls and Bloodborne. The "Soulslike" name has been adopted by a number of critics and developers. However, there have also been questions whether it is a true genre or a collection of shared mechanics.
Kim Kitsuragi is a character in the 2019 video game Disco Elysium. Kitsuragi is a police lieutenant for the Revachol Citizens Militia (RCM) and serves as partner to detective Harrier Du Bois, the game's protagonist. Contrasting Du Bois' more vibrant and unpredictable personality, Kitsuragi acts as stoic and serious partner. He is voiced by Brussels-based voice actor Jullian Champenois, who was chosen after years of searching for an actor who was able to portray what they wanted for Kim, specifically a French accent.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
