Since 1975, video games have been trying to replicate the experience of playing the world’s most famous tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. The actual pen-and-paper game hadn’t been out for more than one year when a student at the University of Illinois created The Dungeon on the PLATO IV system. Fifty years later, D&D-inspired games are winning awards and shaping the industry. Not all of them, however, can capture the experience of a tabletop D&D campaign. Or at least, no one did it as well as Esoteric Ebb has. This game is a homage to the history of CRPGs that is not saddled by nostalgia but looks boldly at the future of the genre.
Developed by Christoffer Bodegård and published by Raw Fury (of Blue Prince fame), Esoteric Ebb is a CRPG that wears its Disco Elysium inspiration on its sleeve. Just like ZA/UM’s breakout 2019 hit, Esoteric Ebb is all about dialogues and the choices you make. Eschewing a traditional combat system, both games instead rely on skill checks and discussion prompts to solve dangerous situations, like fights or traps. However, Esoteric Ebb features a turn-based, pseudo-combat system, where you can select actions through dialogue options or cast spells, while opponents will inflict damage on the protagonist, the Cleric, and his party.
Esoteric Ebb gives the Cleric (not to be confused with The Cleric, which you can become if you truly embrace your clericality by repeating to everyone that you are, indeed, The Cleric), the classic spread of D&D abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The twist is that these stats, besides providing bonuses for skill checks, each represent a different political faction in the city of Norvik. By interacting with the world, and favoring one stat over the others, your political views also become more clearly aligned. You could feel the pull of Norvikan nationalism to stake the claim of your masculinity, or perhaps you believe the free trade capitalism of the Freestriders is the only path to a bright, abundant future. Charisma is the only unaligned stat, because it represents the “apolitical” view of an opportunist. After playing D&D for 20 years, I’ve come to see stats as nothing more than tools for specific builds, so it was truly refreshing to witness a new approach to one of the core aspects of the game.
Despite these clear mechanical differences, Esoteric Ebb feels like the closest D&D experience I’ve had in a video game, perhaps ever. One big reason is the deep, expansive lore created by Bodegård, which is based on his “homebrew” D&D campaign (meaning that the setting, story, and characters are original and not based on published products). The Esoteric Coast is one of the most fascinating fantasy settings I’ve had the pleasure of exploring. The premise is of brilliant simplicity: This was an empty world created by a mysterious being called JOR, which he then filled with creatures coming from a plethora of planes of existence.
