It Was So Nice Watching ‘Disco Elysium’ Kick Ass at The Game Awards
December 17, 2019The Game Awards happened last week, and while most of the (largely underwhelming) announcements have come and gone, one of the reveals that's stuck with us is how many times Disco Elysium, this year's surprise RPG, came away with a major win. For a group full of cynics, it was cool to see!
Of course, there was plenty more to talk about, including why we bother comparing The Game Awards to boring events like the Oscars, our immediate reaction to some designers of Dishonored working on an action RPG they're calling an immersive sim, and much more.
Austin: I will say I'm very happy we were wrong about Green Day. Green Day Beat Saber.
Patrick: We were wrong on a lot of fronts.
Rob: That's a change.
Austin: We were wrong about some things.
Patrick: No one called a shout out to Marx.
Austin: No one called the shout out. Well, no one called the four wins for Disco Elysium, which was very exciting to see. And then the team behind Disco Elysium absolutely got up and said, what did they say? I know that they shouted out Marx and Engels, but I forget the word for word. But it was good.
Patrick: Something about "informing our political something" you know?
Rob: They thanked the people who went before them. And I can't remember the list of people but they ended with Marxs and Engels.
Austin: Yeah. So, so good. And then in general, it was a weird show. I feel like this was the most celebrity the show has been since the Spike era, but I wasn't as irritated by it because I think it reflects a general blending of those two worlds that has actually happened in the time since.
Patrick: I think Alex Navarro nailed it a couple days before the show when he said "Stop comparing this shit to the Oscars, start comparing it to the Golden Globes and you will feel a lot better about talking about this show." Which is true, the Golden Globes is way more of a stunty and messy affair than something like the Oscars. Not to say the Oscars is pure, it's a weird metric.
Rob: Well, and the Oscars is terrible.
Austin: Yeah, exactly.
Rob: But it's this inferiority complex of like, "Oh, where's our Oscars?" Oh, you mean that dog shit, self-referential show every year that is consistently a guide–
Austin: That's too long.
Rob: –to what movies nobody will remember in 20 years? It's 50/50. It's like, sometimes they get it right most of the time it's political bullshit.
Austin: And also most of the time it is out of date, it feels out of touch, rather. This [Game Awards] made me feel out of touch? I don't think I was excited about any of the reveals. I found myself, reveal after reveal, just being like "Phew, video games huh? Cool. They exist. I'm not into basically any of this." And that's obviously a me thing largely because you know, all it would have taken would have been Dragon's Dogma 2 and maybe I'd be like "You know what it was all worth it."
Rob: This was such a "we are holding our fire for when it's really time to roll out these consoles."
Austin: I mean yeah, totally. The new consoles will be out by the time the next Game Awards happen, you're totally right there.
Rob: This was the "does this do anything for you?" Game Awards. That's said there were some cool things.
Austin: Yeah? Name one.
Rob: Weird West.
Austin: No.
Patrick: Oh, come on. It's audacious that it started with like the Xbox Series X being a reveal.
Rob: Wait, no?
Austin: I'm not interested in [Weird West] dude, at all. That was the thing I was most disappointed by because it was the thing I was hoping that it would be a [specific] thing. The team on Weird West are people who made games I like, like Dishonored, right?
Rob: That's fair, the video did nothing for me. I will say that.
Austin: Yeah, I'm not gonna get excited.
Rob: I'm still interested in what they're doing.
Austin: I'm past the point now where I'm going to get excited because someone who made an immersive-sim I like is going to make a new game, because I haven't been super excited by that exact output for the last decade. Weird West is an isometric action RPG, from some of the folks who made Dishonored, from some of the folks who made Prey, set in a Weird West, it's called Weird West. Weird West is a genre. Weird West is like frontier West storytelling, Western storytelling, with a lot of horror elements, some sci-fi elements, very like "twisted creatures in the dark and ancient curses and sometimes there's a werewolf or two."
This is gonna be one of those games where I'm like "I should give this a shot" and I'm not gonna like it. There's a point where I'm being honest with my own taste. How many isometric action RPGs or RPGs have I tried to get into in the last six months, or six years, and have failed to because it's a good idea in a format that I just don't fuck with anymore. And that is not a judgment of the game quality so much as me being honest about my taste. That trailer did nothing for me, I don't know.
Patrick: Well, then why you excited about it, Rob? Because you seem to be intrigued.
Rob: No I mean it's it's a fair point, the trailer doesn't do a whole lot, but I am curious what Raphaël Colantonio and like some of the other Dishonored folks might make if they change formats, right? I guess the thing in my head is I am very curious to see what they would do in light of Divinity: Original Sin.
I'm curious about the RPG they make having seen that game and that system, but that is me projecting a lot into a trailer that, as I rewatch it here, I'm like "Eh." I don't know there's there's nothing to tell me Austin's wrong. This is more just a leap of faith into "well they're kind of three for three on the last things they made, for me." I never played Arx is that good?
Austin: I ever played Arx either, high on my list of things I would like to get to one day. If I can get a little more particular, you bringing up Divinity: Original Sin is a great note for me. Those are games I believed I would love, [but I] bounced off both of them hard. I think the core combat mechanics were interesting, but the pacing of that game killed me. I didn't love the writing of those games. It just couldn't pull me in. And so that is one of those examples of a game in this broad genre that we're talking about, that i thought i would like, got invested in liking, got hyped for, preordered, did the whole thing, and then when it hit it was like, "Mmm, not for me."
Rob: Patrick you're still good. What did you think of this?
Patrick: I don't know. I mean, I knew in my head there's no way that they're announcing a game that is going to be like another one of these that quickly. Right, like it had to be something that was scoped differently. At first blush I was kind of disappointed because, as much as I think the certain slice of immersive-sim, the System Shock / Deus Ex template that's just been sort of like riffed on for more than 10 years. I'm not sure I need another one of those but like, I'd boot it up if I'm being honest with myself.
So the fact that it was a revealed to then be an overhead action RPG like took a little bit of the wind out of my sails, and it's hard to communicate maybe what special about that. I don't know what translates [from immersive-sims to action RPGS] and that's not going to be communicated in a trailer, that's gonna be something that I have to sit down and see a real demo of, or play it to get a better sense of it.
So I'm cautiously optimistic, whereas [when it was an] unannounced game [it's] potential was higher than my excitement is for the announced game, [now that I have] a better sense of what it is. I love action RPGs, so that is not a hard hill for me to climb.
Rob: My experience is probably colored a little bit by the fact I was also relieved that it wasn't an immersive sim, because it makes me look less wrong on that show that we recorded, that people haven't heard yet. I'm like "Phew! Oh, thank God that doesn't look like a tiny Dishonored. Or I would look silly."
Austin: I have bad news for you Rob. "Survive and unveil the mysteries of the Wild West through the intertwined destinies of it's unusual heroes in an immersive sim from the co-creators of Dishonored and Prey." That's their Steam copy. They're calling it an immersive Sim.
Rob: Oh, don't know that I like that.
Austin: Uh huh.
Rob: Hmmmmmm.
Austin: In fact, the word RPG doesn't appear on this page except as a tag, but in both the long and short copy they're calling it an immersive-sim, which is interesting. That's for us, you know, they're like, don't worry.
Rob: Well it's not in the High style.
[laughter]
Rob: Jokes that don't make sense, sorry!
Austin: No one knows what that means yet! That episode isn't out yet!
This excerpt was edited for clarity and length.
Discussed: A Short Hike 23:14, Devotion 46:22, The Game Awards part 1 1:04:55, The MMO Minute presented by Austin Walker 1:19:38, The Game Awards part 2 1:23:47, The Mandalorian 1:46:21, The Clone Wars 1:55:30
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