In a way it's kinda poetic that Disco Elysium was destroyed by corporate greed. That being said, it's a great shame that the original creators were robbed of the beautiful world they created. Fuck ZA/UM.
A couple of the original writers were pushed out, including the lead writer, early on. The rest of the original writers were fired just recently. I don't know how many of the original developers of Disco are still left at the company, but they were already paid for their work on the game. Regardless of who owns it, they weren't going to see extra money (unless the firm has become a co-op, which it should have always been).
That's like you buying a car and when you try to sell it the next person tells you they won't pay anything for it, in fact they are going to straight up steal it like some criminal.
It's very leftist; the dialogue is full of political speak with honest critiques of different ideologies. The story itself is set in Revachol, a place where a communist revolution was crushed by the Coalition (a foreign capitalist military alliance of the most powerful countries and somewhat of a stand-in for NATO), similar to what happened to Libya and the USSR.
The game centers around you (a cop) trying to solve a murder mystery that has something to do with the local Dockworkers' Union striking for overtime pay, workplace democracy etc from a megacorporation.
NATO only got involved in Libya after the civil war was in full swing and Gaddafi's regime had been commiting crimes against humanity vs the civilian population where people were showing support for not his regime.
And NATO only went in with the authorization of the UN Security Council, and the left when the Security Council told them to (against the wishes of the newly formed government after the death of Gaddafi)
Themes and dialogue? It pretty clearly favors the more anti-authoritarian forms of socialism while heavily criticizing communism and fascism. The ultra-liberals come off the best of the lot but it's also made clear that they offer no solutions to the problems the city has and capital will always call the shots at the expense of workers.
Also, on a meta level, the creators got screwed over by capitalists because that's just what a scorpion will do if you give it a ride across a river.
I also liked that it doesn't say that all followers of an ideology are good or bad people. A lot of media that tries to tackle ideologies just make everyone in the general direction of an opposing ideology horrible people. In Disco Elysium is not as black and white. There are good and bad people in every broad ideology. Are you a bad person, just because you believe in capitalism? No. Are you a good person, just because you believe in communism? Also no. Disco Elysium is very nuanced while making it's cases.
It's very reminiscent of the Paris commune, where Parisian pre-marxist socialists were killed almost to the last by the french army after they'd built a short-lived commune. It was basically the end of the Proudhonist idea of socialism (no gods, no masters), which provided space for Marxism to take over in France and particularly in Paris.
Also, on a meta level, the creators got screwed over by capitalists because that's just what a scorpion will do if you give it a ride across a river.
Or maybe they were really good at coming up with stuff, but really bad at managing projects. And when the organization grew to more than a few people they couldn’t handle it anymore and couldn’t deliver on what they had committed to.
Everyone has a story in this particular screw up, and while I really would like the moral to be “capitalism bad/creatives good”, it sounds like your average SME implosion.
If you are planning on getting into this game, just don't pay for it. I'm not saying don't play it, just don't pay for it. The original devs were all stolen from and pushed out of their organization (ZA/UM).
Tl;DR: Group of friends made a RPG setting & book, and then decided they wanted to turn it into a game. All with heavy anti-capitalist, leftist themes. But they needed money to make game, so they brought in some investors who later fucked them over and forced the original creators out so they could make even more money.
Disco Elysium: Final Cut resembles more of an immersive audiobook experience, featuring exceptional narrators. As someone with ADHD, focusing on text can be challenging for me, but the audio format greatly enhances my engagement and comprehension.
I don't know why, but I really didn't enjoy it. I like pretty much every single critically acclaimed game there is, but Disco Elysium bored the hell out of me. It was basically a visual novel with this clunky split personality disorder thing going on. The humour was pretty "so THAT just happened" which explains why it got so popular with Redditors.
Idk, I played it until I got to some group of union workers arguing on some big wall before I just couldn't stomach any more.
This reminds me, I keep searching for the short story written by one of the creators set in the same universe. The only source I can find for an English copy of it is from a shady download link that my antivirus program doesn't want me to open. Does anyone know where I can get a copy?