Since "Disco Elysium" is like a book, here are some recommendations: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Raw Material by Jörg Fauser
You could also watch the films Half light and Inland Empire, after which the in game skills were named... ...however many times it takes to understand a tenth of the plot
There's a game named Sovereign Syndicate which released rather recently. I haven't played it yet, but it looks like a 1 to 1 copy of Disco Elysium, in a fantasy setting. I think they even use the same engine.
@@johannesdalseg5893 okay youre not smart enough to understand that what is described in the game as planned obsolescence is not what planned obsolescence is. thats ok be unbothered i guess
@@user-rm1lg6xh2d Planned obsolescence is not one thing with a singular straightforward definition that every company sticks to in irl either. In the game its just meant a meaningless term to act as a front for the shackling of the sleepers.
Being intentionally designed to break down, and being dependent on the company for fixes. Why doesn't that fit the definition/what definition are you guys working with?
I think if you like Disco you would find Roadwarden interesting. I really enjoyed the dark fantasy setting and the game has some really good writing as well as music to help immerse yourself into its world
id recommend the pathologic games as its kinda similar, you arrive in an unknown world reflecting our own as you try and decipher what is happening, covering some similar themes. One of the most profound experiences ever
although it's in a completely different artstyle, i highly recommend pentiment! partly an early renaissance detective story, but an entirely different narrative and probably one of my favorites next to DE itself, lol.
I find it quite interesting how you said you didn't like Inherent Vice as much as other PTA films. I suggest you watch it again because it actually has a lot in common with Disco. Like Disco Elysium, it's a work about the struggle of coming to terms with the failure of a grand ideal (in Disco Elysium's case communism and the class revolution, in Inherent Vice's case the hippie and pacifist ideals of the 60's). In both works one of the main ways to represent this struggle is through the protagonist's consuming nostalgia and inability to let go of their love interest. Disco Elysium is a tad more explicit in this, because there is a direct superposition of Dolores Dei with Harry's ex wife. But Shasta has a very similar role in Inherent Vice: the end of her relationship with Doc coincides with the turn of the decade and the sunset of hippie ideals. More importantly, she leaves him for a rich estate builder, so this very powerfully represents the transition from the hippie inordinate and laid back lifestyle to the hedonistic and materialistic attitude of modern capitalism. I think the main difference between the two plots is that disco Elysium ties up all of its threads, surreal or weird as they may be, in a very coherent and conclusive ending. Inherent Vice leaves most of them open and unresolved by choice, Doc stumbles on useful things almost by accident but he, as us the spectators, never manages to paint the full picture of the mess that he's gotten into. But I disagree that this makes the film weaker or all over the place, it's a different way of conveying similar atmospheres and concepts and I find it beautiful in its own way.
Torment: Tides of numenera is also very good, incredible story, amnesia plot, many secrets to discover, and i think the best part is how incredible the world is, one of the last cities we visit is literally a stomach of a giant creature travelling through cosmos, inhabited by poor people who eat what he eats.
The first thing that comes to my mind when i hear "Disco Elysium-like game" is "Pathalogic 2". It has no similar mechanics with disco, it has very hard survival gameplay, but it feels like a book, but in the game, just like disco elysium. Maybe i didn't express my opinion clearly, but if tou play it you'll understand
Pretty decent list! Id also recommend the Pathologic games and Vampire the masquerade bloodlines writing wise, also The Age of Decadence to some degree. I wouldnt say combat isnt prominently featured in PS:T the game is still pretty combat heavy, it just takes a secondary role to the story.
Haven't seen the movie, but you might find Inherent Vice to be much more agreeable as a novel. The structure of the plot is such that it keeps moving away from being resolved or making sense, getting wrapped up in conspiracies left and right, probably a difficult thing to capture in a time limited format.
The next narrative-based game that I was able to enjoy after finishing Disco Elysium was Divinity 2 The original sin. It has lass in common in terms of setting and style, but is also very well-written and the gameplay was so much fun
Felvidek is a weird yet beautiful slovakian fever dream that is somehow very similiar to Disco Elysium (the protagonist is an alcoholic knight with a grin on his face and a woman who left him)
I’m actually getting Sacred and Terrible Air printed by a company called Lulu. I can’t wait to read it. I’ve heard it gives off Blood Meridian vibes in the reading style same with house of leaves
Try Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. Both great games, both philosophically driven, in the latter game you are also a detective who is trying to solve the mystery of a ship that has somehow returned to shore but with all the crew members dead. What happened on this ship? and their both also from the same guy. I would love to hear your thoughts on them.
Planescape Torment is truly an incredible game, but just like Disco Elysium, most people nowadays are too brainf*cked to push through lines of dialogue. READING is too much of a task for the modern consumer.
To be fair, Planescape Torment has gameplay that kinda lives up to the game's name. I was living from text to text and suffering though the bits of fighting in-between.
Not exactly a match, but "the return of the obra dinn" is an amazing game with a cool art style where you're a insurance agent trying to figure out what happened to an entire ships crew. I felt empty when I finished it because it was so good. Disco Elysium hasn't quite filled the spot it left, but it's amazing
This is a good video, thought you'd have more subscribers. I think this will be a big channel in YT especially if the creator chooses to talk about media in general and not only videogames
Hey thank you! Appreciate your thoughts on this. This is actually a new channel of mine where I'm experimenting with gaming content, I have another channel that is mainly film/TV/docu style stuff.
Planescape: Torment is so much an inspiration for Disco Elysium that you may as well call Disco Elysium "Planescape:Alcoholism". DE is to PT like an amazing cover of massively influential piece of music, done in an unexpected style, but somehow even truer to the original intent than the towering classic itself was. Two recommendations to plug the void up with: The game A Night in the Woods. Another tale of a struggling, dysfunctional bag of wasted potential in a crumbling, bitter-sweet post-industrial ruin, except in the states. I came to think of it as pretty much a companion piece to DE of sorts. The Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. Things like Sway, Sister Morphine, and, honestly, most of the damned thing, are moreso the soundtrack to DE than the soundtrack to DE is.
Oh yeah, Night in the Woods really fucked me up. It's not as horribly dark, of course, but it hit much closer to home with its themes. Weird, I didn't even think about that game while playing DE, but now that you mention it, yeah, it made me feel as hollow as parts of Raphael's journey at certain points. I can't really think of anything else that comes close to evoking those emotions. Maybe "Longing" in Planescape, if you know you know.
@@ninjatoriumnova2483 They are remarkably simmilar in many ways. Both are moreso novels than games. Both have serious True Detective S1 vibes (Night even moreso). Both have massively dysfunctional and scarred protagonists who lost their minds facing a deeply uncaring and malevolent universe (read: Capitalism). Both games have the whole 'once a nice, hopeful, proud, exemplary place crumbling and decaying all around them' as a setting, whith both seemingly infulenced by the Wire S2 (DE more overtly). Both have an emo soundtrack that punches way above what you'd think the weight of the gere even is. And so on and so forth. Oh, and, IMO Night is actually the darker of the two, it's just done in a less grotesque visual style. I'm East European, DE is 'documentary' to me in the same way tha Night would be to an American. Hell I grew up in the port-adjecent working class neighbourhood, in the nineties, of a town that was literraly 'the other end of Baltimoore, across the pond'. So Marinaise gave me PTSD flashbacks. But Night hit me harder because it's actually even bleaker and more depressing.
I absolutely love Inherent Vice, my favorite PTA film. I do think it’a great, almost purposly keeps the story from you, I think its Edgar Wright that said it should be called Inherent Twice because tou have to watch it twice to get what even happened in the story lmao. Great video dude
@@Dmond94 it’s certainly not for everyone lmao. I just really like the whole aesthetic, and Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. Maybe the story comes out a little clearer in the book by Thomas Pynchon. But I think I’ve watched it enough times to get the story from the movie lmao.
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans by Werner Herzog also gave me Disco Elysium vibes more so if you imagined what Harry du bois life before losing is memory might have been. He has...interesting methods...
Same. I played Citizen Sleeper and Pentiment after Disco Elysium. The first one is nice, but it is a very condensed experience that while good just doesn't reach the level of genius and complexity that DE has. Curiously enough, Pentiment is closer to what I expected DE to be before I played it. It gave me the kind of experience I thought I would have only to realize that DE blew it out of the water so hard it unfortunately caused Pentiment to feel mediocre in comparison. There's also the issue that (MILD SPOILERS) the systems in Pentiment feel a bit barebones and lacking. The story's resolution feels like it detracts from your actions taken throughout the game, since now that you know the answer, you can't help but feel like the game is holding you back to reach the right answer when it's just within reach. Like the game is at odds with its narrative. I'm currently watching a few people playing DE, and it's amazing to see how deep the thought process was behind the game, with not only the ramifications but deep exploration of the character's psyche, and it's all so tightly tied together. DE truly is a pretty much perfect game. And yeah, Joaquin Phoenix as HDB would be so good!
Also played Citizen Sleeper and Pentiment after DE, and while i really liked them both, no game has ever made me cry as much as Pentiment did. Disco is still my #1 though. Just really appreciate their qualities on their own
If you loved Disco Elysium, please give Umineko When The Cry a go. It’s more of a novel than a video game but it’s a narrative masterpiece that the creator put heart and soul into creating, like Disco, and I truly believe you’ll enjoy it 🙏
