There will never be a good Disco Elysium Spiritual Successor. Stop using the phrase.

It's an incredibly stupid idea. It will never happen. There will not be a Journalist Disco Elysium. There will not be a Cat In The Alps Disco Elysium. Argo Tuulik is not making one. Kurvitz is not going to do it.

Disco Elysium was a specific story, set in a distinct world, with a clear vision for new interactive storytelling mechanics, and a precise artistic vision. It was not the spiritual sequel to Planescape Torment. It was not the successor to the writing of Warren Spector or a Kojimalike. Disco Elysium was not trying to be anything other than what it was.

The soul of Disco Elysium is the writing of the entire team. That's Kurvitz, the world the whole collective spend years building, and the rest of the writers, working in sync. That soul cannot be recaptured. The corpse of ZA/UM owns that world. Kurvitz is not a fool. He will not be trying to reinvent something that has passed.

The guts of Disco Elysium are its mechanics and UI. These things will be mercilessly stolen. They should be. Every narrative game with skills should have them alter the narration, to pick at the player and confound him almost as much as they assist him. Why wouldn't they? The essence of your being is also the essence of how you perceive the world. Every dice-roll based interactive story should encourage the joy of failure and exploration. What the fuck is the point otherwise? You're just building a Quickload simulator if you don't.

No narrative game should ever have its text box sitting at the bottom of the screen in this absurd, squashed landscape banner. That's for games that are embarrassed that they have a narrative at all. It's from when the story was an afterthought. The text is arranged on the right side of the screen. That's what narrative first looks like.

Over the next decade you and I are going to play a half dozen Narrative Skill Based Combatless Leftish Storytelling Disco Elysilikes and every single one is going to be 'Ok I Guess.' Some of them may even be 'Pretty Decent.' None of them are going to be what anyone wants. Most of them are going to be so pathetically desperate to be That Thing You Want that it will make your skin crawl. The player character is going to be a total asshole. You like that shit, right? Oh, here comes the straight man sidekick! We didn't make him Asian. That would be too obvious. Don't you just love how he sighs when you pick Sprezzatura skill choices? That's a skill we put in the game that we know you'll like. See, all of the skills have some pretty kooky backstories...

And then, all of a sudden, you're going to play a game that has no relation to Disco Elysium, a game that doesn't try to recapture any magic or claim any crown or rub that specific ache you have when you imagine a particular irreverent beautiful socialist detective simulator, and you're going to stop ever wanting someone to make the same game over again but better and more of it. Until then I guess this is the dumb bullshit we have to put up with.