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10 Welcome to Revachol: Disco Elysium as virtual dark tourism

  • Florence Smith Nicholls
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Critical Theories in Dark Tourism
This chapter is in the book Critical Theories in Dark Tourism

Abstract

“When middle-class people talk about foreign places, they like to talk about “contrasts,” so begins a devlog for the role-playing video game Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019). Disco is set in Revachol, a fictional city still ravaged by the repression of a communist uprising. You play as Harrier (Harry) Du Bois, a detective who has arguably become a tourist in his own city thanks to drug-induced amnesia. In contrast, his hyper-competent partner Kim Kitsuragi is treated like a tourist in Revachol due to racist assumptions. This chapter considers Disco Elysium as a dark tourist experience in line with existing work on the potential of video games to explore digital speculative histories (Milligan, 2018; Smith Nicholls, 2021). Aside from the fictional dark heritage of Disco, the identification (or not) of the player with protagonist Harry will form the second theme of the chapter. Disco is at its heart a role-playing game, and this case study provides an opportunity to examine how the theatricality of dark tourism (Willis, 2014) manifests in this medium. Finally, the dark tourist experience of Disco Elysium will be examined using the concept of hauntology and Sara Ahmed’s work on queer phenomenology (2006), specifically how the player as Harry is disoriented in a once-familiar world (Sawicki, 2021). The analysis reveals that the game can be understood as haunted on various levels - the video game medium itself, in terms of its post-revolution fantasy-realism setting, and a product of the alleged toxic work environment under which the game was produced.

Abstract

“When middle-class people talk about foreign places, they like to talk about “contrasts,” so begins a devlog for the role-playing video game Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019). Disco is set in Revachol, a fictional city still ravaged by the repression of a communist uprising. You play as Harrier (Harry) Du Bois, a detective who has arguably become a tourist in his own city thanks to drug-induced amnesia. In contrast, his hyper-competent partner Kim Kitsuragi is treated like a tourist in Revachol due to racist assumptions. This chapter considers Disco Elysium as a dark tourist experience in line with existing work on the potential of video games to explore digital speculative histories (Milligan, 2018; Smith Nicholls, 2021). Aside from the fictional dark heritage of Disco, the identification (or not) of the player with protagonist Harry will form the second theme of the chapter. Disco is at its heart a role-playing game, and this case study provides an opportunity to examine how the theatricality of dark tourism (Willis, 2014) manifests in this medium. Finally, the dark tourist experience of Disco Elysium will be examined using the concept of hauntology and Sara Ahmed’s work on queer phenomenology (2006), specifically how the player as Harry is disoriented in a once-familiar world (Sawicki, 2021). The analysis reveals that the game can be understood as haunted on various levels - the video game medium itself, in terms of its post-revolution fantasy-realism setting, and a product of the alleged toxic work environment under which the game was produced.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Foreword 1
  5. 1 Dark tourism: The need for a critical approach 5
  6. Part I: Dark tourism, affect and emotions
  7. 2 Atmospheric instability in dark tourism: Spatial construction of conflicting affective atmospheres at the Titanic Museum & Attraction, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (USA) 33
  8. 3 Understanding the emotions of visitors to Chernobyl 53
  9. Part II: Dark tourism and critical animal studies
  10. 4 Animals as dark tourism attractions: A prototype 77
  11. 5 Meet, greet and eat: Farmed animals as dark tourism attractions 89
  12. Part III: Dark tourism and critical memory studies
  13. 6 Trading paradise for Palestine: Dark tourism to refugee camps in the West Bank 109
  14. 7 The scope of dark tourism-scapes: Exclusion zones and their creative boundedness from Chornobyl to Montserrat 129
  15. 8 Exploring the intersections between dark tourism and Arctic traumascapes in the Anthropocene: The case of Finnish Lapland 147
  16. 9 “Despicable and disgusting”: Emotional labor, and the fear of dark tourism 163
  17. 10 Welcome to Revachol: Disco Elysium as virtual dark tourism 181
  18. Part IV: Dark tourism, power and identity
  19. 11 Sites of (dark) consciences: Investigating dark tourism cosmologies in a postcolonial landscape 203
  20. 12 Towards a postcolonial museum? Experiencing legacies of colonialism in dark tourism museum exhibits 219
  21. 13 Exhibiting power: Dark tourism and crime in the police museum 245
  22. 14 Representations in UK witches tours: Walking over the roots of misogyny 261
  23. 15 Critical theories in dark tourism: Over the years and beyond 277
  24. List of contributors 285
  25. List of figures 291
  26. Index 293
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110792072-011

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Foreword 1
  5. 1 Dark tourism: The need for a critical approach 5
  6. Part I: Dark tourism, affect and emotions
  7. 2 Atmospheric instability in dark tourism: Spatial construction of conflicting affective atmospheres at the Titanic Museum & Attraction, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (USA) 33
  8. 3 Understanding the emotions of visitors to Chernobyl 53
  9. Part II: Dark tourism and critical animal studies
  10. 4 Animals as dark tourism attractions: A prototype 77
  11. 5 Meet, greet and eat: Farmed animals as dark tourism attractions 89
  12. Part III: Dark tourism and critical memory studies
  13. 6 Trading paradise for Palestine: Dark tourism to refugee camps in the West Bank 109
  14. 7 The scope of dark tourism-scapes: Exclusion zones and their creative boundedness from Chornobyl to Montserrat 129
  15. 8 Exploring the intersections between dark tourism and Arctic traumascapes in the Anthropocene: The case of Finnish Lapland 147
  16. 9 “Despicable and disgusting”: Emotional labor, and the fear of dark tourism 163
  17. 10 Welcome to Revachol: Disco Elysium as virtual dark tourism 181
  18. Part IV: Dark tourism, power and identity
  19. 11 Sites of (dark) consciences: Investigating dark tourism cosmologies in a postcolonial landscape 203
  20. 12 Towards a postcolonial museum? Experiencing legacies of colonialism in dark tourism museum exhibits 219
  21. 13 Exhibiting power: Dark tourism and crime in the police museum 245
  22. 14 Representations in UK witches tours: Walking over the roots of misogyny 261
  23. 15 Critical theories in dark tourism: Over the years and beyond 277
  24. List of contributors 285
  25. List of figures 291
  26. Index 293
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