In my first hour of the CRPG Esoteric Ebb I nearly died from eating too many apples, messed up a Charisma check so badly that I bit my own tongue and spat blood onto the floor, then used the confusion this caused to trick a cocky kobold into giving me his crossbow. Moments later, I was accepting a quest to steal his milk run side-gig.
As its Steam page states, Esoteric Ebb is inspired by the freedom of TTRPGs, and any D&D fan worth their salt will be instantly at home in its colorful, fantasy world of tieflings and dwarves, clerics and druids. If you played Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll be au fait with a lot of key concepts like spell slots, short rests, skill checks and advantage, although they work very differently in an RPG where the written word is king and even combat proceeds through the dialogue tree.
Esoteric Ebb puts its own thoughtful spin on tried and tested D&D terms, and you can find yourself pulled into tongue-in-cheek yet philosophical chats about chaotic good and lawful evil or the differences between druidic and clerical magic. For the most part though, I found the game’s setting so familiar it allowed the unusual aspects to stick out, such as the political parties vying for control in the city’s first democratic election.
At one point, upon rounding a corner, I was stunned by the totally mundane sight of a bike rack. It sounds silly, but for a moment I was just so wrongfooted by the anachronism. I thought I knew where I was, but it turned out I was wrong. Esoteric Ebb is a game that likes to surprise you (and that bike rack turned out to be a clue).
It’s not just the ‘tabletop RPGs’ part of Esoteric Ebb’s self-description that’s important. The ‘freedom’ is also key, and if there’s one thing this game absolutely nails about D&D, it’s the fun that’s to be had screwing around with the world and its NPCs, being distracted by random bullshit rather than getting on with the quest.
You can ask inane questions, tell pointless lies. At one point my character found a sending stone, and immediately used it to ring up every important person they’d met to tell them about… the cool magic rock they just found. You can speak to animals, regardless of whether or not you’ve actually learned the spell ‘Speak With Animals’.
“Hello, I am from the local government,” I greeted an unblinking, uncomprehending cat, before speculating about its politics for a while. Esoteric Ebb’s DM must be a patient one.
Just like a D&D PC, the main character in Esoteric Ebb crashes through the world like a well-meaning bull in a china shop, the protagonist of one hundred strange, often funny, occasionally poignant little dramas with the world and its denizens that seldom end how you anticipate. It’s one of many, many ways the game feels like a D&D-flavored Disco Elysium.
Similarities to Disco can be found on every level, actually, from gameplay, to theme, to plot. Instead of a washed-up cop, you’re a somewhat disgraced cleric, but in this setting that’s more-or-less the same thing. You’re a low-level authority figure, employed by the city. You have a crime to investigate and before long, a long-suffering sidekick to grow fond of.
Just like Disco, Esoteric Ebb is a game tinged with politics. You need to solve your mystery – a magical explosion in a tea shop – quickly, because election day is coming. And you can ask pretty much everyone who they’ll be voting for, even if you already know they are not a citizen or are a cat. While you’re still finding your feet in the setting, the game is asking you to pick sides too and asking questions of identity. Who are you? What do you believe in?
The absolute best way Esoteric Ebb blends D&D with Disco Elysium is its stat system. The game uses the usual collection of D&D stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Nothing new there.
But once again, the familiar is cast in a fresh light. Because just like Disco’s assortment of skills, the D&D stats in Esoteric Ebb are both attributes that determine whether you succeed or fail at skill checks, and characters in the game.
Dexterity is not just a stat that determines whether you can climb a tree, but an irreverent self-interested, capitalist jackass. Strength is earnest, proud, headstrong and patriotic, but maybe, slightly fascistic. Intelligence is a judgemental know-it-all.
These stats are inner voices that accompany you throughout the game, chipping in with their own thoughts any time you interact with anything or anyone, arguing with each other and with you.
This is just as great a storytelling device in Esoteric Ebb as it was in Disco Elysium, but because there are six of them, not 24 like in the older game, you end up becoming more familiar with each one – building up a better sense of a character with multiple personality traits instead of something one-note. The stats feel like main characters, not just part of a wider cast. Call me a narcissist, but I found myself more interested in my own inner voices than any NPC I encountered in the game.
To be clear, that’s not because the NPCs were dull. No, I was thoroughly charmed by the scary goblin queen and the crab that thought I was also a crab. But because you’re carrying these six voices around throughout your journey, you simply get to know them better. Most of them are jerks.
The stats even have their own view on the politics of the city. Strength is a nationalist, Dexterity’s for the guilds. Empathetic Wisdom wants to fight for worker’s rights, while Intelligence thinks the smartest person around should be in charge and that this is probably you. Constitution’s apolitical, and Charisma’s loyalty depends entirely on what will make people like you.
The skill system works through checks made with a D20 die (what else?) Rolls are firing constantly, with the stats providing different insights or giving you different outcomes depending on whether you succeed or fail.
This can be a great storytelling tool in itself, depending on what stats are triggered by an endeavour and how difficult a check is. For example, in the first few minutes of gameplay, I consider taking my helmet off and every stat except charisma promptly fails a DC:20 check and tells me, in no uncertain terms, not to do that. It’s unnerving. Is something wrong with my face? Or is taking my helmet off just that antithetical to who the Cleric is?
Overall, I found playing Esoteric Ebb is not quite as electrifying as Disco Elysium, but that’s only because it’s following in that game’s footsteps. We’ve had how many Soulslikes now, though? I think the world can handle two great games in the Disco Elysium mold, though, especially when the setting of Esoteric Ebb is so very different.
This game is comforting where it’s familiar and exciting where it is new, a blending of two things I never would’ve thought to combine. If you’re a fan of D&D and good dialogue, I think you’ll love it. You’ll be able to find out for yourself very soon, because the game launches on March 3, 2026.