When a failed novel becomes a successful video game The case of Disco Elysium

This article discusses two works by the Estonian Robert Kurvitz; the novel Sacred and Terrible Air (2013) and the video game Disco Elysium (2019). Both take place in the same universe, which seems distinct from the real world while occasionally echoing it, especially in its onomastics and languages. Comparing the novel and the game allows us to underscore how each work, in its own way, constructs the reader/player’s access to this fictional world.