When open world games became more technologically viable in the later 2000s, an increasing number of games adopted open-world environments. Read: What are games for, if not community, collaboration and creativity? When Fortnite rose to popularity in the late 2010s, the battle royale genre boomed.Īny significant innovations are often copied and reused, until games resemble each other so much that there’s rarely an unexpected moment between them.

The nature of the ever-moving games industry is that it must follow trends to stay profitable and engaging. In recent years, mainstream blockbuster ‘AAA’ games have suffered from a strange period of ‘sameness’. It’s a moment that stands out against the experiences of other modern games. It helps them see the game with new eyes, and reconsider their preconceived notions about its world, and our own.

The Phasmid can also be considered symbolic of Harry’s willingness to change and accept the weirder parts of the world - but its sudden appearance and disappearance also works as a sharp, strange, and unfathomable shock for audiences. It makes a comment about the world that it’s strange and unknowable, and that our pre-formed expectations are often wrong. In the place between the game’s ‘real world’ and its ‘fantasy’, ZA/UM strengthens the narrative of Disco Elysium through absurdity. It’s also very memorable, and strengthens the game’s critique of the world. The appearance of the Insulindian Phasmid is weird. It’s a hard-boiled, grungy, crime fiction about a detective given to vices and losing control. Image: ZA/UMĭisco Elysium is not a fantasy game. A set of expectations that the appearance of the Insulindian Phasmid shatters. Our mind forms an image of what the game ‘should’ be. We also learn how it corresponds to real life, and the struggles of living in an oppressive, relatively mundane society. As we dive deeper into the game, we learn more about its largely grounded world how Harry’s mind works, and how the city of Revachol is beholden to crime and civil disobedience. We know what a role-playing game entails, and how point-and-click style adventures function. In the context of Disco Elysium, we expect a game that adheres to familiar patterns.

‘Those peculiar experiences are the things that stand out, that make a more lasting memory.’ Speaking on the topic of memory, Per Sederberg, a psychology professor at Ohio State University, once said our most memorable experiences are shaped by circumstances that arise from the familiar, but ‘violate some aspect’ of what we expect to happen. And it’s very, very weird - as more games should be. In a game filled with powerful moments, it’s the one that stands out most.

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