Disco Elysium

You're not alone, it's a complaint I've heard plenty of times before. I don't personally agree with it, I actually think the ending of the game is pretty perfect. But it's why I tend to say that Disco Elysium claiming to be a "detective game RPG" on its store page is straight up misleading. This was never a whodunnit. And whether you enjoy the ending or not depends on how well that has become clear to you during the cause of the investigation.

Or, in a sense it kind of is a whodunnit, but the case is actually Harry, not the murder. The game is in large part his story, and using that to deal with larger themes of loss, being stuck in the past and finding hope in the midst of nihilism and doom. These themes permeate the whole game... Hell, the Pale is a case of the past quite literally consuming the present. It's why I think the communist vision quest is the most appropriate, but I won't spoil it further in case you opted for another one.

The whole arc on the island was incredibly beautiful and well laid out, at least I found it that way. First you have the Final Dream. Perhaps the single most impactful moment I've had in gaming. It's written and acted to perfection, and it's where the whole game kind of clicks into place. Harry is laid bare, you realize that literally everything he's done has been from the lens of winning Dora back, you learn of his neuroses and his way of speaking in trees. You hear the "death blow" of the aborted child. It still blows my mind how Kurvitz managed to distill the whole pathos of the game into three little words to close out the dream. "See you tomorrow".

And then, the killer. For me, it was again a perfect choice. Remember, this was not a whodunnit, this was never about the murder mystery. This is a story about Harry, and the killer is the Ghost of Christmas Future. After having gone through the dream, you're faced with the logical conclusion of Harry: The Deserter. A man so utterly consumed by his past, by his failures and his losses that nothing remains but pure unadulterated bitterness. Unable to let go and move forward he is a black void of contempt.

And then, at the darkest hour, as you're faced with a grotesque mirror image of what's to come - a light. After all the trials and tribulations, after all the doubt and the resignation to the mundanity of it all a miracle unfolds out of the reeds. A proof that even on this depressing, perishing world, even in the face of all that nihilism there is unknown wonder hiding just out of sight.

There is hope.

Spoilers ahead :

So, I dont have the literary skills to word it properly but : for me the way Disco Elysium handles narration is making things happen without them needing to be connected. Think of it as cop pov slice of life in ex communist ghetto, you dont really have a big mystery going on, its all in Harry's head and his delusions of grandeur. Things happen randomly, you're only here for the journey of experiencing them, not the destination. The whole melancholic atmosphere is very post-ussr-collapse-like, you met so many characters with their own stories, and you'll probably never learn of their fates: what will happen to Cuno? What's with the Pale in the church? Was the commercial area really doomed? How about the drug trade from the union? Will Martinaise get better?

I agree the end may feel abrupt, but the most important part of the game was the experience, not the resolution. The police case is just a tool to set up the setting and get you engaged.

I think the beauty of the killer reveal is that it changes the story we thought we were experiencing the whole time. We think it's a detective story, maybe with themes of redemption and economic struggle and love, but it's actually a story about the struggle of being human against the spectre of a devastating past.

The killer has sacrificed this humanity for his cause, and he hates seeing lives unfold at a distance. He thinks he's serving some great cause but it's ultimately petty. And we see what happens when a person gives everything up for this one purpose only for that to fail.

I didn't pass my check to speak with the cryptid so I don't know how that changes the perspective of the game at all. Maybe I'll do a replay and go for it, but the existence of the cryptid just underlined that things aren't what they seemed throughout the story.

I can understand your points about why the ending didn't land with you, but personally I found the ending super emotionally resonant.

One of my favourite aspects of the game is how insignificant you are in the setting; this isn't a story where you can be a big hero and change anything of real note — Revachol (and Martinaise especially) is haunted by its past. Communism is a part of that past, and so discovering the killer's identity felt like a logical consequence of the world in a way, even if it was super out of left field.

I agree with you about the yuck about the weird sexual fixation the shooter had, but I liked what that did for his character and the story. Like sure, he's a vehement communist, but he's also a deserter who is an asshole even if you're playing as a communist. It also seems like Evrart knew of his existence and even used him to do a political assassination previously. I like how this makes the world feel messy and fundamentally human. Ideological questions are important, but we can't have grand debates about capitalism Vs communism without reckoning with the messy reality of the humans who are advocating for those ideologies. The deserter became fucked up because he has been tremendously socially isolated, and he lived that way because he lived in a time when they were lining up Communists against the wall to execute them. He is a toxic loser, and in that way, he represents a tragic culmination of the fucked up world of the game.

Along similar lines, I liked that characters like Klaasje didn't end up being related to the mystery of the killer. Her lack of greater narrative significance helped me to appreciate the nuances of her character, rather than her just seeming like a plot prop. For example, the weird relationship she has with Lely is hella fucked up: she knows that he has killed and raped civilians. She knows he is a piece of shit, but also, she seems to see herself in that light too. If she is disgusted by him, then sleeping with him may feel like a sort of "punishment", or self harm. That's speculation, but certainly it seems like their relationship was pretty toxic. I think she does say something about how they deserved each other. Part of her depression seems to be linked to the lack of her significance in the world. After all, she had pissed off some people enough that she was having to hide out in a shit hole like Martinaise, a place that the world had forgotten. It seems pretty likely that she was a spy that was working for some corrupt people, and those people probably would be anti-union, and that feels significant, even if this is only true in a far more general manner than what you were speaking about. Ultimately, the true conflict of the game is one that transcends the murder of one mercenary, or the striking of one union, or the escape of one corporate spy. It's the question of "the world is fucked — what do we do about it?". Klaasje is burnt out and hopeless because she doesn't have an answer to that question beyond striving for her own survival. Klaasje doesn't matter to the story, and she knows it.

"Who knows - maybe both Harry and Kim hallucinated."

Kim took a photo of the phasmid in my play through. Did that not happen in yours?

Regarding the prospect of explaining the phasmid's existence, I think it's possible. It could just be a large insectoid creature that secretes hallucinogenic pheromones, and the conversation that Harry has with it could be hallucinated, even if the phasmid isn't. But also, when considering the phasmid, we should remember that the pale is an established part of the metaphysics of the world, and that entroponetics is a field of scientific study in the world of Disco Elysium. That is to say that it may be scientifically explainable in world. I enjoy the ambiguity around it though. I share your disappointment at not seeing the cryptozoologists reactions to the photo, but also I suspect that I would have been more disappointed had I been indulged here, if the scene hadn't been as satisfying as how it would've gone in my head. The phasmid is a weird as hell element, but for me, it ties up many of the themes in the game, like the idea that there isn't a Plot to the world, and that "reality" is just a dizzying network of connections between people, places and ideas. Like, the notion that the phasmid's hallucinogenic pheromones may have contributed to the deserter's cognitive decline and psychosexual fixation on Klaasje is utterly absurd, but somehow (for me, at least), it doesn't feel contrived — the absurdism is the point.

Regarding the final conversation with your colleagues, I found that a satisfying conclusion, but that may be because it felt like an appropriate ending for my Harry. It was a bit of an anticlimax, but I wouldn't have it any other way. After all, the world is still fucked, and even if you've played Harry as someone who is on a path to recovery, any hope in the ending is bittersweet. I like the vibe of the thought cabinet perk from going sober:

"Congrats – you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol, so you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping like a normal person. Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time."

I haven't struggled with alcoholism myself, but this framing of recovery was something I resonated with. Sometimes, I find myself feeling wistful for times when I was more severely depressed and grappling with suicidal feelings, because back then, I thought of it like a grand battle between life and death. Well I chose life, and the hardest part is that I need to keep choosing life each day (and also that "choosing life" mostly entails mundane tasks like dragging myself out of bed each day (especially when I don't want to)). It's an odd feeling: distinctly hollow, and yet there is a small seed of hope that has the potential to grow to fill that empty space.

Harry's ending feels similar to my own, in that it isn't an ending. Some things can improve, like how Kim going to work at the 41st precinct is definitely a positive thing for Harry, and showing Lena the phasmid would undoubtedly buoy his mood. And hell, maybe it'll be positive if Harry returns to work, but doesn't lead the squad anymore — maybe it'll be less pressure. But despite these concrete improvements, it's not enough to negate the gargantuan effort it is to exist in the world as a fucked up person (especially in a job that puts Harry right up against the world's suffering). In my ending, Jean Vicquemare seems glad that Harry's achievements will mean they probably won't have to fire him, but that too is bittersweet because he's also someone who is fucked up in his own way. I wish that we got a "better" ending, because I want the story to end in a nice, resolved manner for these characters, but that wouldn't be realistic. In a sense, my frustration and wistfulness is the core theme of the ending, and if I let myself sit with those emotions a while, I find them giving way to a tentative hope. Similarly, right now, I feel frustrated at the arduous task of needing to get up and make food (I am emotionally tired, and it feels excessive that we have to do this every day), and I am hurting due to chronic illness and I wish that things were different because this isn't fair. If I let myself feel all that though, I remember that I am here because I chose to be. It's bloody difficult, and there's so much awfulness in the world that makes me feel small, but there is so much good that I care about that gives me strength on the hard days. I'm never going to change the world, or be anyone of note really, but by focussing on what is worth fighting for, I can be a part of something larger than myself. For me, the ending of Disco Elysium captures this complex blob of emotions.

Lol OP didn't get the good ending.

disco elysium is mostly driven by character and theme rather than plot. you're not expected to solve the mystery, the game is more interested in which sidequests you engage with, how you treat the other characters, and how you choose to interpret the story. the choices you make don't influence the mystery but they do influence the events of the mercenary tribunal, phasmid encounter and the final scene quite a lot. the tribunal is mostly about how well you did at the detective work and your relationship with Kim, whereas the phasmid encounter is about Harry's inner journey, then the results of both of these scenes filter through to the confrontation with the other cops.

I also think the game does a pretty good job of setting these expectations, because for most of the game you just think the hardy boys did it, instead the game works pretty hard to make you curious about other things and you end up just going through the motions of the actual investigation

the deserter is probably one of the weaker characters, he does feel like a plot device, but he's there to let the story connect the events of the game and harry's own personal journey directly and literally to the history and politics of revachol, i think that's probably why they decided to make him the killer in the first place