When novice developer ZA / UM decided to do what would become Disco Elysium, to some extent, they didn’t know what they were getting into. The game, as it was released, takes place in a single district of the fictional city of Revachol, called Martinaise, but in its original conception, the game would have covered five. Downsizing has become a necessity for the relatively small team at ZA / UM if they wanted to launch their RPG – but after a successful launch and more than a year of additional development time, Disco Elysium is about to become much closer to the that its creators originally intended.
Disco Elysium – The Final Cut is scheduled for release on March 30 and significantly expands the ZA / UM game released in October 2019. Along with the release on PlayStation 4, PS5 and Stadia (ZA / UM says it plans for Switch and Xbox Versions One and Series X | S in the future), Final Cut adds new missions, new characters and a myriad of small changes throughout the game that will allow players to solve problems in new ways. ZA / UM gave GameSpot a look at Final Cut during an online event prior to its launch, which gave an idea of some of the tweaks, while displaying the real crown jewel in the enhanced version of the game: full voice acting.
“I would even say that it’s like having seen a film in black and white and, hopefully, enjoying the film and then returning to that film after the director reworked it and created his dream version of the film and saw it in color, all of a sudden, “said director Jim Ashilevi during the event. “I would say that the difference is vast and dramatic.”
It was no small feat – as Ashilevi explained, Disco Elysium contains about 1 million words that had to be said, almost the same amount contained in all Harry Potter novels, or twice that contained in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit . Final Cut features about 59 actors from countries around the world, he said.
“Revachol really is like the capital of the world. It is a giant melting pot of different cultures, different languages, different political views,” said Ashilevi. “It’s a huge cauldron for all these things. And we really needed the narration to emphasize that aspect of the Elysium Disc. Because you get a sense of it without the narration, when you go through the game as if you were reading a novel. But the narration is read , it has to be a game changer in that regard. So I would say that it brought all these different languages and accents into the game and it gave you the opportunity to really hear that symphony of accents makes a big difference in the way you experienced the Disco Elysium. “
While the fact that Disco Elysium – The Final Cut is fully expressed should drastically change the game’s playing feel, it is not the only addition to the game. The Final Cut also adds four new missions that expand the character’s character through the political alignment that players bring to him.
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These additions are called political vision missions, which allow you to further expand the mechanics of the Elysium Disc Thought Cabinet. Depending on the choices you make in the game, the elements of the Thought Cabinet you focus on and the way you interact with other characters, you will have access to one of these four missions.
Choosing a mission excludes you from others, and not all missions have the same duration or have the same impact – but all of them will have an effect on the later game. According to the main artist Kaspar Tamsalu, the objective of the pursuits of the political vision is “to culminate and catharsis”.
“For some players, these pursuits of political vision really offer self-expression, drama, an act, while for others, it offers a path to true introspection,” explained Tamsalu. “Unlike real life, the video game allows you to reload a saved game and try to solve a complex situation in a totally different way and, through this process, the player will undoubtedly open up to different and sometimes opposing points of view. This paves the way for empathy. Of course, we are going a little deeper into the political side of the game with these political vision missions. We are also going a little deeper into (the protagonist’s) mind and poking a little more deeply into the tapestry that is the history of the world of Elysium. “
“I can say that by completing each of these missions, the player will undoubtedly meet new people, learn something new about people they have already met in the game, learn something new about themselves, discover – let’s call them secrets – about the world of Elysium, “said Tamsalu.
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Other changes to Disco Elysium in The Final Cut bring a variety of improvements. The game’s frame rate has been increased, Tamsalu said, and The Final Cut includes quick trips to make moving around Martinaise a little easier. There is new art and music in the game to accompany the additional content. And ZA / UM worked to make Final Cut easier and more interesting for streamers, with a mode that replaces copyrighted music. Twitch integration means that fans who watch streamers play Disco Elysium can vote for actions and dialog options. There is also a feature that will allow stream viewers to vote to increase or decrease player statistics, changing how key moments in the game can happen.
Together, the improvements and additions to Disco Elysium in The Final Cut align the game with the original vision of ZA / UM – not the twisted design in the sky with an extensive city and real-time tactical combat, but the involved, novelistic version that spawned, and that Disco Elysium was close to hitting in 2019.
That’s why ZA / UM poured out so many features to fully express the game, Ashilevi said: The developer wanted to create the best version of Disco Elysium possible and make it as accessible as possible for players, especially if they were playing on their sofa .
“We wanted the existing game to shine in all its glory, instead of running and going crazy with the expansions,” he said. “Disco Elysium was already complete, just missing the branch of political missions, which is now added to the story. So it made perfect sense for us to put most of our resources into the aspect of the game that still had the greatest amount of untapped potential – voice over. Until now, the game was based mainly on the shoulders of two giants: writing and art direction. Now, finally, we have that third pillar built in the form of full voice-over, which not only complements but also raises the strongest characteristics of the writing and the artistic style of the game. With these three pillars supporting the experience of moving through history, the player is finally fully immersed in the game the way we wanted them to be immersed in the first place, to put it. “