Ask 100 people what their favourite video game is, and plenty will say 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disco Elysium. All the others will be wrong. It’s right up there with my own all-timers (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:just check out my bio as proof), and is the only game in that list that I don’t have any sense of nostalgia for. That’s mostly beca♎use, the first time I played, I did🤪n’t get the ending at all.
Major spoilers for Disco Elysium to follow. If you haven't played it yet, go and 🌺do that now. Right no𒁏w.
I’m not talking about the ending where the officers from your Precinct turn up and evaluate your detection process and Kim judges you based on whether you completed the game sober or took your chances with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:various experimental narcotics in his presence. I’m not even talking about finding the Deserter and solving the🌟 case. On my first playthrough, I even saw and conversed with the Insulindian Phasmid, one of the most rewarding conversations in the game.
The ending I missed🎐 occurs just before that, as you arrivꦛe on the island and prepare for the endgame.
When you enter the abandoned building, Kim encourages you to take a nap to recover your strength. He really encourages you. It’s probably the only piece of writing in the game where the dialogue seems off, because the developers really want you to sleep in the bed and trigger a dream sequence of utmost importa🍎nce to♏ Harry’s character arc across the whole game.
On my first playthrough, however, it all went wrong. I took the hint and slept, but my game crashed. Instead of launching me into ౠthe dream sequence where you meet Dolores Dei, I was met with a white screen. I waited. I waited some more. Eventually, I realised the game had crashed and I🦋 reloaded.
But I tried again. I tried e꧑xploring the island a little bit before sleeping this time, connecting the generators and finding the sniper nest before settling in for my power nap. Alas, the game glitched a🍸gain. Begrudgingly – and much to Kim’s annoyance – I proceeded to confront the Deserter without the important dream sequence. I finished the game, and I felt fairly satisfied. It was good. But something didn’t feel right.
Ending Elysium
For a game so praised for its writing, there was no payoff. I didn’t necessarily think Harry needed a redemption arc, but he deserved closure, at least. Even though I’d played through ✃as a clean cop for fear of disappointing Kim, that didn’t seem enough. There were no answers about his ex-wife, the cause of his addiction, the fundamental things that make Harry, Harry.
There was a part of me that liked it. I don’🐻t think all media needs to spell itself out for you. Subtext is important, as are mysteries and loose ends. I like things being open to interpretation. But, without the dream sequence, Disco Elysium’s ending felt a bit flat from a characterisation perspective.
It wasn’t until my first replay that I realised what had happened, what that strange bug had robbed me of. As I powered through the game years later – this time embracing Harry’s drunken chaos – I got to the same point. I’d made nearly every decision differently from my first playthrough. Half a dozen were dead, Kim had been hospitalised, and Harry had fallen deeper into his addictive tendencies. But there w𝄹as one thing I was going to do the same: try to sleep.
Et voila. It worked. Harry fell asleep and dreamed of Dolores Dei. And dreamed of his ex-wife. And everything felt right. This is a powerful scene that I won’t do the injustice of paraphrasing seeing as you’ve almost definitely already seen it yourself, but I will describe how it🍬 made me feel. It felt… Satisfying. I was relieved. It was as if I’d always known some piece of the puzzle was missing and now it had been slotted in. Like Harry, I felt closure.
Despite my first Discꦐo Elysium playthrough being a dud (well, sort of), it was already in my top ten games I’d ever played. Having seen Harry’s story through to its heartbreaking culmination, however, it rocketed to one of my all-time favourites, instantly putting Studio ZA/UM on my Mount Rushmore of gamꦗe developers.
I’d never recommend skipping a crucial scene of a game on purpose, but the relief and satisfaction I felt when playing through Harry’s imagined conversation with Dei was like no other. I even like to think that it helped to turn his life around afterwards, despite my efforts to sink him into a deeper fun꧟k of intoxication𓆉. But that’s just a headcanon. After all, there are some questions that really are better off left unanswered.
