Disco Elysium as Philosophy: Solipsism, Existentialism, and Simulacra

Abstract

The quest-rpg Disco Elysium is set in a peculiar world: in it, the various continents are separated from each other by what is called “the Pale,” a rarefied medium devoid of any properties. This “Pale” is constantly expanding, threatening to consume reality, and is apparently caused into existence by the human mind. This raises the worry: if humans have brought the Pale into existence, then maybe they can make reality disappear altogether. In this manner, the game explores some ideas pertaining to idealism – the belief that reality is inextricably intertwined with the operations of mental faculties. To help make sense of the idealist implications of this game, this chapter will focus on the Pale. First of all, the game’s approach to the Pale reminds us of Berkeleyan subjective idealism. Berkeley argues that objects are sets of ideas and that God is the ultimate source of these ideas. It we keep examining the claims of the game, we are led towards transcendental idealism, especially the way it was approached by Schelling: cognitive agents produce knowledge over and above the “thing-in-itself.” But the game presents its idealism particularly negatively, and we can spot a semiological idealism in its stance – one that is similar to that of Baudrillard, with the Pale serving as a decaying hyperreality which produces informational “noise.” In this sinister context, the amnesiac protagonist of the game is new to the symbolic order and can potentially find a new approach to it.