In terms of design, this feels like the next big thing every other game in the genre will try to recreate or to build from, not just in the deliberate absence of direct violence as the default way to interact with the world, but in the way that world is presented, and how your RPG abilities are handled. It's pretty ingenious and contributes tremendously to the overall experience. In terms of writing, it's hard to deny its merits, as it is a very ambitious game in both scope, variety, extravagance and complexity, and in a way, it achieves a lot by being profound in its conversations and chilling in its crucial moments, BUT, and here's my biggest gripe with the game; Disco Elysium feels like it desperately wants to be the coolest kid in school, with this pessimisstic vibe and this unbearable edginess that really messes with what is otherwise a masterpiece. Is like that scene in Good Will Hunting when Matt Damon faces another man in a bar and asks him which authors has he read. Very pathetic, really. And the sad part is that unlike that awful movie, Disco Elysium HAS very cool shit to tell and show, and that tenderness, that genius character writing (your main companion in particular may be the best videogame character ever), that attention to detail, and those big poignant moments get kind of ruined by the sheer degree of cynicism present throughout the game. From the "capital subsumes all its critiques into itself" bullshit, to the world ending nightmarish-political vibes of a devastated city that can't and won't improve its conditions because it tried once and didn't succeed so what's the point of doing it again and why even bother, to the atrocious western marxism-trotskyism ode of an ending, at some point, this is a misery parade, despite all of the ways it may seem it isn't. At its core, this game has a messiah complex, and an overwhelming negative view of everything, and that spoils everything else. Take that out, and this is the best game of all time.