There’s no shortage of good games out there — in fact, there’s quite a number of truly great ones as well. If we take subjective preferences out of the equation, even the games we could call masterpieces aren’t that few and far between.
And what about timeless games? Yes, there are some of those too.
Every era sees its share of experimental titles. And while we might not be flooded with games that inspire or get cloned by others, you only have to think for a moment before a decent list of influential ones starts forming in your head.
But what happens when we talk about unique games? Some titles — whether due to their mechanics, their ideas, or simply being overlooked in their time — might not stay unique forever, but they remain unmatched in their moment.
Disco Elysium carries every single quality I listed above. It’s unique. It’s inspiring. It will, without a doubt, be imitated for years to come. Amazing games will surely follow its lead — but whatever magic happened here, call it stardust, call it planetary alignment, it won’t happen again.
And with everything that happened to ZA/UM as a studio, that fact became real for me. Maybe even they couldn’t have done it again, but at least, they could have let us hope.
A game that’s this unique, that dares to be this different, that will likely stand the test of time — and as if all that weren’t enough, it’s polished to near perfection in every category we can measure.
