Disco Elysium is an RPG where you're never alone. Not because your buddy cop Lt. Kitsuragi won't leave your side until 9pm each night—at which point you can pretend to go to bed, then sneak away to take drugs and steal the boots right off a corpse—but because from the first scene you've got a chorus of voices in your head.

Some of them are parts of your brain: The Ancient Reptilian Brain and the Limbic System are in constant conversation when you try to rest. But most of them are just whichever skills you've put the most points into. I had a decent score in Drama, which meant that I could sometimes tell when people were lying or telling the truth, but it manifested as the voice of a wanky Shakespearean actor. "Prithee, sire! I do believe he dares to speak mistruth!" That sort of thing. It also tried to convince me to lie about the serial number I'd found on a piece of evidence, because that would be more fun.

Meanwhile, the Authority skill barks with the voice of a military sergeant, saying I should interrogate everyone with force, while Physical Instrument is an inner football coach telling me to get into shape and Electrochemistry is a louche debauchee who thinks I should drink more and smoke cigarettes for "massive bonuses".

It's like carrying around a full party of BioWare companions. "You should drink that wine you found in the street," is definitely something Varric would say. I'm the player who chooses companions based more on their personalities than their stats, so Disco Elysium is perfect for me. It's never going to limit me to a party of three or six or whatever. There's always room for more voices in my head.

Some of the skills go beyond this role as individual NPCs and become entire populations. Putting points into Empathy means there's another layer in every conversation with actual people, letting me know what they're thinking and what their body language suggests. Encyclopedia on the other hand is a skill that recites trivia—massive deluges of it. If you are into "lore" this is the skill for you, but if worldbuilding bores you, it'll drive you nuts.

While Empathy lets me know what other people might be thinking, the Inland Empire skill gives interiority to objects. If you play Bloodlines as a Malkavian there's a great bit where you argue with a stop sign. In Disco Elysium, with enough points in Inland Empire you can talk to everything from a mailbox to your own necktie.

Esprit de Corps adds another chorus. This skill, which suggests what a proper cop would do in any given situation, gives insights into what other police are doing right now. These blue visions might be real or they might be imaginary. After radioing my precinct to explain how disastrously my investigation was going, Esprit de Corps chimed in to recite the conversation among my coworkers about what a fuck-up I was, a flash of cop fiction what was funny and bleak and one of the most impressive bits of writing in a game where every five minutes there's another contender for 'most impressive bit of writing'.

One more I can't skip is Shivers, a seemingly useless skill that represents your sense of the city of Revachol in which you live. Every now and then it narrates a vignette at you, colorful moments in the lives of people nearby. But then, after taking speed to increase my stats so I'd be better at dancing, I fell into a lucid dream in which I had a conversation with both my own spinal cord and the city itself. This is just the kind of thing that happens in Disco Elysium.

Giving skills and other aspects of who you are their own voices makes it a weird and wonderful Inner Monologue Simulator, in which the path toward truth is slicing yourself into aspects—entire hosts of devils and angels—and letting them interrogate you and each other. At one point I made my Rhetoric skill apologize for trying to get me to ask a question whose answer would be too painful to deal with.

The actual NPCs are great too, and I should give a shout-out to Kim Kitsuragi, the long-suffering cop who gets partnered with you and has to put up with your shit. He's one of those classic characters who reveals more facets as you get to know him. But where another RPG might give you a party of characters with dark secrets to uncover, in Disco Elysium you're the one with secrets and an army of mind people alternately trying to hide or reveal them. 

It's exaggerated to suit your situation as one troubled individual, but there's truth to it. Maybe "everyone contains multitudes" seems like an obvious point to make, yet living for hours deep inside someone else's crowded head has made it concrete for me in a way I won't soon forget.

You are not well. You've woken up on the floor of a grimy hotel room with a hangover so devastating you might as well be dead. You don't remember who you are, which city you're in, or what happened the night before. Apparently you're a detective, in town to solve a murder, but you don't feel like a cop. You feel like shit.

Disco Elysium is a detective RPG of improbable depth. It's part Planescape: Torment, part police procedural, part psychodrama. Your fatally hungover detective peels himself off the carpet, naked except for a pair of soiled underpants, and begins the laborious process of piecing his broken mind back together, while simultaneously attempting to solve a gruesome murder on the wrong side of the tracks.

The game has stats, skill checks, companions, quests, and an interface inspired by classic Infinity Engine CRPGs and tabletop roleplaying games. But it also has a lot in common with visual novels and point-and-click adventures, with dense, branching dialogue and the ability to intimidate, charm, or bullshit your way out of tricky situations via several novels' worth of brilliantly strange, vibrant dialogue. There's no clicky Baldur's Gate-style combat here: everything happens via skill checks, dialogue, and text, including when things turn violent.

A man has been found hanging from a tree in an empty lot and it's your job to find out who killed him—if you can get near the corpse without puking. Disco Elysium's sallow, flare-wearing protagonist is a total disaster. The taste you get in your mouth the morning after a heavy night of drinking made flesh. The sticky floor of a discotheque given life. But the beauty of the game is how you can remould this grotesque lump of sin into something else entirely.

Thanks to that skull-shattering hangover, and the amnesia conveniently brought on by it, your detective is truly a blank slate. You can reveal things about yourself by talking to the poor souls caught in the wake of your apocalyptic bender. But you're also given the opportunity to suppress these discoveries, even down to denying your own name and choosing a new one. The degree of freedom you have to shape your character's psyche is really quite astonishing.

Through conversations you control every facet of your personality. You're given a variety of ways to respond to people, and this dictates your personality, how the population reacts to you, and the outcomes of quests. The things you say and decisions you make in Disco Elysium really, actually matter, affecting your role in the world and the inner workings of your mind in a meaningful way.

You also have to watch what you say, because doing the usual RPG thing of exhausting every conversation option regularly leads to you putting your foot in your mouth and getting someone (or yourself) in trouble. Characters will remember things, so it pays to think carefully before making any rash decisions or betraying someone. Then again, a cavalier attitude can lead to interesting, unexpected things: an example of how well Disco Elysium caters to different play styles.

Skills are important too. There are 24 in total, ranging from logic, perception, and reaction speed to endurance, conceptualisation, and authority. A character with high authority might find it easier to pressure a timid witness into spilling their guts. A high logic character can divine truth from a clear-headed analysis of a crime scene. There are some more esoteric skills too such as inland empire, which lets you pluck inspiration from dreams and talk to inanimate objects.

Conversely, a character with low perception can miss case-breaking clues floating right in front of their face, while a low endurance cop will struggle in even the most trivial physical trials. All the defining traits of the best fictional cops are in there, but importantly, the worst are too. So if you want to have the superhuman insight of Sherlock, but also be a self-destructive mess like The Wire's Jimmy McNulty, Disco Elysium lets you.

When you create a character, your starting skills are determined by the stats you roll. Your base stats are intellect, psyche, physique, and motorics, which make you better or worse at certain things. But as you play you earn experience points that let you upgrade any skills you like, allowing you to sculpt your character further. You might start out physically weak, but stick enough points into the appropriate skills and you can become a force of nature.

And I haven't even mentioned thoughts yet. As you speak to people you'll reveal thoughts that can then be slotted into your brain and developed over time, unlocking stat buffs and fascinating, insightful nuggets of story. Some of these have a major effect on your character's mental state, while others are more frivolous and largely played for laughs. You're limited to three thoughts to begin with, but skill points can also be used to unlock more. And the more thoughts you develop, the more complex your character becomes.

The result of all this is one of the most preposterously malleable characters in RPG history. You can create a highly empathetic communist disco music enthusiast, a self-deprecating artist who punches first and asks questions later, a deluded rock-and-roll cop with a passion for democracy, or a drug-addicted feminist psychic. Every person who plays Disco Elysium will have a different experience as a result of the frankly audacious depth of its role playing.

The game is set in the fictional city of Revachol; specifically a dreary, forgotten district called Martinaise. Plagued by poverty, crime, corrupt unions, and scarred by a violent revolution, it's exactly the kind of place you'd expect to wake up after a three-day drug binge. It's gorgeous, with a stylish, painterly aesthetic, expressive characters, and detailed backgrounds. But it's filthy too, which is relayed mainly by that gloriously rich, evocative writing. A vividly described autopsy made me feel genuinely queasy.

Many of the people you meet say disgusting, offensive things, which is entirely justified by the grotty bleakness of the setting. Martinaise is a horrible place filled with horrible bastards. But there are flickers of warmth and humanity, too. People making the most of a bad hand, struggling against an uncaring world. It's a lavishly realised setting with acres of history and culture to discover, although occasionally, in some optional conversations, I felt like a mountain of rather dull, long-winded lore had been suddenly dumped on my head.

Typically the writing is funny, subversive, and, admittedly, a little self-indulgent at times. But it's also incredibly good, with an anarchic literary flair that makes even the most matter-of-fact conversation hugely entertaining. There's partial voice acting too, although it varies wildly in quality. The sleazy, rasping delivery of your ancient reptilian brain, which regularly emerges to taunt you, sounds wonderfully evil. And I love the soft, calming voice of Lt. Kitsuragi, your partner, who is a kind of moral centre for the wild and unpredictable protagonist.

Freedom in Disco Elysium isn't just limited to shaping your character. The structure is also extremely open-ended, letting you pursue the murder as doggedly, or not, as you like. A list of tasks is constantly building up in your notebook, and you can perform them in any order you like: including those linked to the main case. And they're all interconnected, meaning doing one task before another can open up completely new avenues of investigation.

Martinaise is a large, open space made up of several distinct areas and the sheer volume of stuff to interact with, people to talk to, and quests to pick up is quite overwhelming. You'll investigate a dilapidated apartment block, a frozen coastline, a crumbling boardwalk, a dockyard, and other suitably grim locations, all of which are brought to life by that beautiful art—not to mention atmospheric music, lighting, and ambient sound design. It's a place you can really get lost in.

How you complete tasks and solve crimes is dependent on your character. If you're the physical, all-action type, you'll deal with situations in a more direct, aggressive way. But if your character is psychological or empathetic, you might find a more subtle solution. Crucially, every kind of player is catered for. In my experience you'll never hit a brick wall because of the way you've built your character. This makes Disco Elysium a supremely satisfying RPG, because if you want to play a certain way, it's primed to accommodate it.

The thing about Disco Elysium is that my experience of it is completely unique to me, such is the dizzying variety of skills, stats, thoughts, and conversation options on offer. You could play through it five times and still not see everything, so there's no one experience to assess. But I can say with certainty that it's one of the finest RPGs on PC if you value depth, freedom, customisation, and storytelling.

Disco Elysium is an incredibly deep RPG and there's no right way to play. But there are a few things that might be useful to know when you first hit the mean streets of Martinaise, whether it's making some extra cash, figuring out how the in-game clock works, or escaping your partner's prying eyes.

Collect bottles

Look out for a yellow plastic bag. With this equipped you can pick up bottles, either from the ground or by rooting around in garbage cans. You can then exchange these in the Frittte convenience store for money. You won't make a fortune this way, but it might help you afford a bed for the night.

Always be tabbing

Similar to games like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, holding the tab key highlights objects in the world that can be interacted with, containers, and NPCs. This is especially useful for finding hard-to-spot bottles. If it feels cheaty, just imagine it's your detective's finely honed senses.

Time passes as you talk

Time in Disco Elysium is not real-time. Rather, it's advanced primarily by talking to people. So whenever you're in a conversation, the clock will be ticking, moving the day forward. You can also make time pass by sitting on benches or reading, which is handy for objectives that are limited to a certain time.

Watch your tongue

It's tempting to exhaust every conversation option when talking to people in Disco Elysium, but this can sometimes be a bad idea. Think carefully before you press a tricky topic, because in this game it's possible to let something slip that can bite you in the ass later, or get someone else in hot water.

Run, stop, run

If you double click somewhere in the world your character will sprint there instead of his usual stroll. Well, it's more of a wheezy jog than a sprint, but it's reasonably fast. And if you want to stop moving suddenly, perhaps to click on point of interest that has just been revealed, slam the spacebar.

Breaking locks

Occasionally you'll encounter a container, or something in the environment like a sewer grate, with a grey outline. This usually means it can't be accessed with your bare hands, which is where the tools found in Lt. Kitsuragi's car come in handy. Equip the correct tool, try again, and the loot is yours.

Play dress up

Disco Elysium has an incredible selection of clothing to deck your detective out with, but they're more than just for making you look cool. Every piece of clothing comes with positive and negative stat modifiers, so if you're having trouble with a skill check, throwing on a hat might give you the edge.

Go with the flow

A game this heavy with skill checks means you'll be tempted to save scum. And while this is a perfectly valid way to play the game, because it's your life and you can do what you want, it's worth noting that failing a skill check in Disco Elysium can often lead to something interesting or unexpected.

Ditch your partner

I love Lt. Kitsuragi, but sometimes you need to be alone to complete certain tasks. To lose him, wait till nightfall then head towards whichever bed you happen to be crashing on that night. He'll wish you goodnight and turn in himself, leaving you free to wander back back into town solo.

Stay healthy

Occasionally an interaction will seriously damage your health or morale. You'll know this is happening by the health critical or morale critical message that flashes on the screen. In these situations a meter will start to drain and unless you quickly use a restorative item (pray you have one) it's game over.

Learn more about the world

If you love lore and world-building, stick some points into the Encyclopedia skill. This will give you little nuggets of information about pretty much everything that crops up in a conversation, from the complex history and politics of Disco Elysium's world to the nerdy specifics of weapons and vehicles.

Listen to your brain

Your broken brain is one of the chattiest characters in Disco Elysium, frequently piping up to remark on things, sabotage your thoughts, or otherwise mess with you. But sometimes these lines of dialogue give you subtle hints about the right thing to say in a conversation to get what you want.