Game News The Game Awards 2020: Disco Elysium - The Final Cut, Dragon Age and Mass Effect

[Infinitron]

Tags: BioWare; Disco Elysium; Dragon Age: Dreadwolf; ZA/UM

This annual Game Awards event, hosted as always by the omnipresent Geoff Keighley, aired last night right on the heels of Cyberpunk 2077's release. It was the last chance to reveal some new games at the conclusion of what's been a very unusual year. For us Codexers I would say the night was pretty disappointing, but for one important exception - the announcement of Disco Elysium - The Final Cut, a free content update coming in March alongside the game's console launch. It'll include a new area, new characters, and a set of new "political vision quests", not to mention full voice acting. More details are available on the game's fancy new official website. Here's the announcement trailer:

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The only other noteworthy RPG studio to make an appearance at the event was none other than BioWare, who are seemingly trying to reboot after years of turmoil and the recent departure of their last few veteran leads. New teaser trailers were unveiled not only for their next Dragon Age game, which was expected, but for a new Mass Effect game as well. It appears that the game will be set in our galaxy following the events of the original trilogy, abandoning the unfortunate Andromeda spinoff.

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I guess it's another periodic reminder that BioWare still exist. We'll call it a comeback when they finally have some gameplay to show, not to mention actual titles for the games.

 

[gulagdandy]

There's barely anything to talk about but from what little we've seen:

• I got good vibes from the DA teaser. It openly says they are dropping the whole "chosen one" story structure that so badly hampered DAI. It's the most re-used cliché in Sci-Fi and Fantasy and we've seen Bioware can create interesting narratives when they move away from it (in my probably controversial opinion, anyway). The city in the teaser looks cool too, and Solas is a good antagonist if nothing else because he's already been established and has a strong backstory; he's also more empathetic than some moustache-twirling villain a la Corypheus or the Arch-demon.
• Mass Effect on the other hand... after trying (and failing) to expand the universe with ME:A, going back to the same old characters and locations seems like admitting defeat to me. I think the ME universe is solid enough to allow for radically different stories, and I would have preferred they ditched the quasi-fascist themes of the original series, which I'm less confident about when the cast of characters remains the same.

That's about it. Call me naive or unrefined, but I still get excited for big budget RPGs from classic companies, even if recent efforts leave a lot to be desired.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Fuse has been lit, waiting for explosion.

 

[Morality Games]

• going back to the same old characters and locations seems like admitting defeat to me.

Lol, good, because they have been defeated.

Admitting it would be the biggest display of realism I've seen from Bioware in over a decade and a good first step to salvaging any remaining creative potential at the studio.

 

[luj1]

Nice participants... An adventure game + two Dark age IPs

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Why the fuck do you keep making me use the despair button? Isn't there enough suffering in the world?

 

[CyberWhale]

There's barely anything to talk about but from what little we've seen:

• I got good vibes from the DA teaser. It openly says they are dropping the whole "chosen one" story structure that so badly hampered DAI. It's the most re-used cliché in Sci-Fi and Fantasy and we've seen Bioware can create interesting narratives when they move away from it (in my probably controversial opinion, anyway). The city in the teaser looks cool too, and Solas is a good antagonist if nothing else because he's already been established and has a strong backstory; he's also more empathetic than some moustache-twirling villain a la Corypheus or the Arch-demon.

Ah... I've had the same thoughts and feelings when I was still young and naive, and they've announced DAII. Look how that ended up.

 

[Cross]

I got good vibes from the DA teaser. It openly says they are dropping the whole "chosen one" story structure that so badly hampered DAI. It's the most re-used cliché in Sci-Fi and Fantasy and we've seen Bioware can create interesting narratives when they move away from it

 

[CyberWhale]

I got good vibes from the DA teaser. It openly says they are dropping the whole "chosen one" story structure that so badly hampered DAI. It's the most re-used cliché in Sci-Fi and Fantasy and we've seen Bioware can create interesting narratives when they move away from it

Fixed.

 

[himmy]

I think the ME universe is solid enough to allow for radically different stories

This. Creating the ME universe is probably the last good thing Bioware actually did. I'd love to see a fun, rompy soap-opera in the ME universe with roguish, genuinely likeable characters and a story that doesn't touch on the events of the first games. But alas, who is there left to make it?

 

[Fenix]

New ME and DA ahaha.
Laughing hard.

 

[Roguey]

For us Codexers I would say the night was pretty disappointing, but for one important exception - the announcement of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

 

[S.torch]

For us Codexers I would say the night was pretty disappointing, but for one important exception - the announcement of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

What is wrong? It was Codex Game of the Year 2019.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm confused about these game awards. Are these games that came out this year or ideas that have been introduced? I wonder how many additional contents DE will get.

 

[Freakydemon]

Nice little treat getting more Disco

 

[Gyor]

Here is to hoping that both new Bioware games have upgraded to turn based like BG3

 

[Morality Games]

For us Codexers I would say the night was pretty disappointing, but for one important exception - the announcement of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

What is wrong? It was Codex Game of the Year 2019.

(a) wasn't reflective of the opinion of the most active part of the Codex community. At best one-third of them think Disco Elysium is both a game of the year quality production and ALSO a genuine cRPG. Probably two-thirds didn't think it was an RPG and at least half of those didn't think it was very good (more because they believe the idea of the game design sucks rather than because effort or execution on the part of the developers). Most of the votes came from people who aren't very active and who also aren't very particular about the definition of a cRPG, same people who think Jagged Alliance 2 is a top 20 cRPG.

(b) there wasn't much competition. If there were any quality releases that deserved the top spot, too few Codexers played them relative to the number that played Disco Elysium. Same reason why the excellent Expeditions duology goes unrecognized.

Spoiler

I don't care personally, I'm just looking at the issue clinically

 

[S.torch]

(a)

This is good and all, but how did you come to these conclusions? Unless you have additional means to know how the poll was made (!) it is impossible for you to know who exactly voted for Disco Elysium and their score. The actual statistical information shows that at least two thirds of the Codex considers Disco Elysium very good.

(b)

I'm pretty sure Disco is going to perform well in the next "best CRPGs of all times" poll too. Then will know how it performs in respect to "other RPGs". Until that moment there's only conjecture.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

(a)

This is good and all, but how did you come to these conclusions?

Copium is a helluva drug.

 

[Absinthe]

But does Disco Elysium include the mechanical overhaul needed to be an RPG? Did they fix the stupid dress-up system? And does it have C&C now? Or are we just going to get more linear visual novel adventures where the story has already been planned out for you and everything you do just affects the flavor text you get along the way?

As for those other two, it's impressive that EA still isn't done raping those corpses before they finally bury them. I guess they really can't handle the shame of being the graveyard of videogame developers. Or maybe they're somehow still not done milking those brands to death.

There's barely anything to talk about but from what little we've seen:

• I got good vibes from the DA teaser. It openly says they are dropping the whole "chosen one" story structure that so badly hampered DAI. It's the most re-used cliché in Sci-Fi and Fantasy and we've seen Bioware can create interesting narratives when they move away from it (in my probably controversial opinion, anyway). The city in the teaser looks cool too, and Solas is a good antagonist if nothing else because he's already been established and has a strong backstory; he's also more empathetic than some moustache-twirling villain a la Corypheus or the Arch-demon.

Yeah, I agree that Bioware has a skill for wasting whatever potential their settings have through forced heroic journeys and trite narratives, but so far we only heard about what the game won't be, rather than anything it will be. When you add to that the recent firing of the creative directors, odds are we are going to see another "we have no idea what the fuck we're doing, so we're hoping a cargo-cult approach to being as Cool as possible will somehow fix it" project. But, to be fair, I don't think anyone really had any faith in those fired designers anyway, so it's possible that EA will somehow do better without them. But the gameplay is going to fucking suck, again.

I'm not interested in buying a game because a concept artist could make a pretty painting and a marketing company could animate it in pseudo 3D with lots of post-processing.

• Mass Effect on the other hand... after trying (and failing) to expand the universe with ME:A, going back to the same old characters and locations seems like admitting defeat to me. I think the ME universe is solid enough to allow for radically different stories, and I would have preferred they ditched the quasi-fascist themes of the original series, which I'm less confident about when the cast of characters remains the same.

It's another marketing video that's not showing jack shit.

That's about it. Call me naive or unrefined, but I still get excited for big budget RPGs from classic companies, even if recent efforts leave a lot to be desired.

You're definitely naïve. There is a reason why these games always sell worse if they were to put out demos: They can't sell the games based on showcasing the actual product anymore.

What is wrong? It was Codex Game of the Year 2019.

That poll was dubious as fuck. Felipepepe got raked over the coals for that one, for reasons ranging from the way the poll was conducted (by an open, anonymous google form linked on the front page, which is vulnerable to people voting multiple times and getting shared by randos on the internet who have fuck-all to do with the codex), to questioning how arbitrary the standards for inclusion are if even DE qualifies as a RPG, to questioning his method of normalizing poll results, to questioning the way felipepepe prunes his list of submissions of what he considers spam/garbage voting. Disco Elysium actually topped out in the number of minimum ratings according to the raw data.

Anyway, wouldn't be the first time the Codex has had a poll that got messed up, but 2019 RPG poll does stand out as a year where the entire poll basically got disowned, since iirc the top 3 were all really dubious entries when it comes to being classified as RPGs.

 

[Fenix]

Yeah, polls are... something I don't quiteunderstand.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Wait, I thought it had already been released for consoles.

Not that I care.

 

[S.torch]

That poll was dubious as fuck.

There was another poll, in which only codex members get to participate. There you can even see who voted what.
Disco still won by a large margin.

 

[Absinthe]

That thread passed me by. And that's one of the crappier ways to hold these polls. Usually for serious polls we make people vote by posting in thread and actually give reasons for their votes. Also, that thread features a lot of people not voting, a lot of people saying "Jesus, the entire list is shit.", a few people saying "I liked DE well enough, but I don't think it should be listed as an RPG" (This is my stance too.), and a bunch of people wishing to vote games not on the list. The only reason Anthem was scoring as highly as it did on that poll was likely because it was listed as the kingcomrade option. If fanta had listed a proper "none of the above" option it probably would've scored highly.

 

[Strange Fellow]

polls are serious business