![]() Start talking about being a communist? You might've thought you'd get a pat on the back for that after the other two got trashed, but your reward is the same. Opt to believe in liberalism? No safety there, your inner thoughts will chime in to mock you for an indecisive position that only upholds the status quo. ![]() Choose to be a fascist? Rightly, the game shits on you. But playing through, you'll inevitably find that it doesn't matter what kind of politics you try to believe in - no matter what position you take, the game will sneer at you for it. To its credit, it does not deny the existence of politics, or try to make them vague and undefined metaphors one can say mean nothing at all if questioned about them. As endless interviewers have gotten to find out, questioning AAA developers and publishers about politics in their video games gets you a mix of "We just like to raise questions", "This is really all up to what the PLAYER thinks," and "What's politics? Never heard of it." For Disco Elysium, the issue is a lack of sincerity, a defensive posture adopted to keep you from getting too close to what is at its core-an ache to believe in the revolutionary politics and possibilities of communism, and a fear of the sincerity it requires.Įven as Disco reaches beyond the ambitions of weaker, far more limited morality and choice systems in games like Mass Effect or Bioshock Infinite, it does not fully abandon the ideological narrative shield those systems offer. With Kreia, the purpose of the moment is a shallow but sincere philosophical provocation, trying to get you to look at the world and your choices in a different way. When Disco Elysium is at its worst, I think of Nar Shaddaa and knowing that any choice l make will end with me being berated - though why Disco chooses such a path couldn’t be more different from KOTOR 2. To give five credits is depicted as being equally bad as denying someone five credits and threatening to kill them just for asking.Small decisions can only leap to extreme outcomes, all beliefs and actions are bad, and all beliefs and actions are equally bad. Not only that, but the smallest kindness is painted in the same despairing light as wildly unnecessary cruelty. Doesn't matter which path you choose, doesn't matter what beliefs you decide you want to have in this character, Kreia will approve of none of your choices. If you decide to load the save just before that conversation and take the other route, denying the beggar the mere five credits (as well as going so far as to threaten to kill him!), Kreia will speak up again, having a speech at the ready about how your cruelty just adds to more cruelty, and oh, how terrible you are, to not give that beggar a pitiful five credits - and literally threaten to kill him if he doesn't leave you alone. She goes on about how expressing kindness and solidarity to others can lead to just greater pain and firmly pushes you to internalize this lesson. In other words, about as from from Disco as you can get…until you look at what happens next.Ĭhoose to give him credits and your companion Kreia will speak up to tell you all about why that was such a foolish decision, painting a future where your mild philanthropy causes the beggar to gather too much attention from others, promptly getting mugged for the credits you gave to them. It's the type of simplistic binary that typified Bioware games, and one that follows a pattern in high-minded RPG’s of inserting throwaway side-quests based on complicated sociological issues. Your options are to either give him the credits, or to not give him the credits, followed up by threatening to kill him if he doesn’t leave you alone. The beggar asks if you can spare him some credits. But there's a moment on the planet Nar Shaddaa between you and a beggar. Yet Disco Elysium's approach to choice and possibility is better anticipated by a scene in Knights of the Old Republic 2, an earlier Obsidian game whose limited narrative options and Star Wars setting might at first make it seem like the polar opposite of Disco's grounded, flexible storytelling.
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