After Disco Elysium's messy breakup, this Kurvitz-backed RPG could fill the gap

The whole Disco Elysium situation is a mess. With its original creators ousted, fans have turned on developer Studio ZA/UM, which still owns the Elysium IP and the rights to make any sequels. ZA/UM canceled a sequel called Locust City, which featured Cuno and Cunoesse as protagonists, and the universe lies languid. However, no fewer than five spiritual successors have popped up in its wake, with increasingly tenuous links to the original game. I'm more interested in Rue Valley, a game that wears its Disco inspirations on its sleeve, but doesn't purport to have more than a meager connection to the original game.

Indeed, while Robert Kurvitz, the man credited with writing most of Disco Elysium, unofficially consulted on Rue Valley and officially praised it, it's quite different from anything you'd expect in Elysium. There's a time loop, for starters, and while the protagonist is struggling with his own inner demons, he faces them in a very different way to Detective Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau.

Rue Valley has big shoes to fill if it wants to match Disco Elysium's success as one of the best PC games ever made, but it's off to a positive start. The demo released for Steam Next Fest blew me away with great writing and an informed understanding of mental health - something so many games fail to grasp. I barely touched the time loop or anything further, but I'm already paying attention to what's next.

What's next is a partnership with mental health charity Movember, as well as a brand new trailer revealed at Gamescom. The tone is very different to Disco Elysium, but the smooth jazz soundtrack and roleplaying potential are intriguing to say the least.

Whether you decide to go to therapy, shout at a thunderstorm, kick a vending machine, or all three, Rue Valley could be the game we've all been searching for since replaying Disco Elysium for the fourteenth time. Don't tell me that's just me.

Rue Valley will release on Tuesday, November 11. You can wishlist it on Steam here.

If you can't wait until then, check out some of the best RPG games on Steam, and make sure you're prepped for all this year's releases with one of the best gaming monitors.

If you want to discuss the fallout of Disco Elysium, its spiritual successors, or Rue Valley's inspired addition to the Disco-like genre, send us a message in our community Discord server.