If ever there was a game I didn’t expect to spawn a horde of spiritual successors from startup companies of varying dubiety, that game was celebrated commie hangover simulator Disco Elysium. And yet here we are with yet another claimant to the dance floor, Pera Coda. In fairness, it takes inspiration from a lot more than just ZA/UM’s RPG, but Disco Elysium is mentioned rather prominently in the marketing.
Created by Falan, a Turkish team founded by three architecture students, Pera Coda is a timeloop story set in a “surreal”, “neon-noir” Istanbul, in which you play an attorney, Deniz, who is navigating a purgatory inspired by Bardo in Buddhism. The city is described as “both a stage and a mirror, where East meets West, chaos meets calm, and each district reflects a piece of your fragmented self.” Certainly sounds quite Revacholian. Here’s a teaser trailer.
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Combat there is none: instead, you’ll solve point-and-click puzzles and make use of a “masking” mechanic, which lets you resculpt Deniz’s memories and alter certain objects in ways that persist across loops. The investor pitchdeck I’ve been sent compares the puzzling to Outer Wilds and 12 Minutes. Another comparison that springs to my mind is The Sexy Brutale.
The Falan devs have posted a few concept videos of the game on social media, ahead of today’s announcements. It’s seemingly thanks to the popularity of those early videos that they’ve now partnered up with Elyzio, a company founded in 2022 by former Ubisoft technical director Anas El Ferachi and Google gaming consultant Dogan Can Yeginer. You might know Elyzio as the publishers of Warden’s Will, a movement shooter that earned a few thumbs-up from the Steam reviewerati.
Pera Coda’s current development team under Elyzio includes game designer Cem Çelik, previously a junior designer at Crytek, technical director Arthur Trouslard, who has worked across Ubisoft, Sloclap and Don’t Nod, and Mehmet Ali Şen, formerly of Cultic, whose past credits include Cats And The Other Lives.
Very much speaking as a clueless Anglo European tourist, the thing I find most interesting about Pera Coda is the city, which is “grounded in real iconic buildings and neighbourhoods”, but is punctured by hallucinations. I would also like to hear more of the game’s interpretation of Bardo, about which I am also clueless. Here are some screens.
If you prefer your Disco Elysulikes to be developed by people who worked (in whatever capacity) on Disco Elysium, may I refer you to the three direct heirs – Hopetown, XXX Nightshift and whatever they’re making at Summer Eternal. All three were announced within hours of each other, producing what Nic called “an “I’m Spartacus”-ass day of press releases”.
The rush continues with games like Esoteric Ebb. There are also a bunch of smaller Disco Elysuals on Itch.io. I realise I’m probably doing some or all of these projects a disservice by framing them as Disco Elysium follow-ups, but it does feel a bit mad. Rumour has it that the pigeon currently trapped in your office is also making a Disco Elysium successor in collaboration with Tencent, based on the five minutes it once spent shitting on a ZA/UM staffer’s sandwich. Personally, I’m reserving my pennies for the dawning of a Roadwarden-like trend.
