Klaasje

Geography and history

Revachol is located on the isola of Insulinde, the "New New World"^[3] Forty-nine years before the game's events, a wave of communist revolutions swept multiple countries, overthrowing the Suzerainty of Revachol monarchy and replacing it with a commune.^[3] The game's genre is described as "fantastic realism", and the narrative was constructed with attention to Karl Marx's theory of history.^[4] The world includes over six thousand years of history developed by Kurvitz and his team.^[4]

The Pale outnumbers the isolas' coverage of Elysium 2-to-1, meaning eventually the Pale will swallow all of Elysium.^[5] There are seven known isolas in Elysium: Mundi, Seol, Samara, Graad, Katle, Iilmaraa, and Insulinde.^[5] Revachol was founded about 380 years before the game's events during the early colonization of the Insulinde isola in the Dolorian Century.^[5] The narrative of Disco Elysium is set in the year 51 of the Current Century, within the Martinaise district, a poor area of the city Revachol.^[6][3]

Elysium consists of separate land and sea masses called "isolas", which are divided by the Pale—an enigmatic, fog-like substance where reality's rules cease to function.^[6] Being in the Pale for an extended period can lead to mental deterioration and ultimately death; travel through it is strictly controlled because of these hazards.^[6]

What the cited sources add

The development team started as a D&D group and slowly built their world into what is now Disco Elysium.^[5] The Pale is separative tissue of absolute nothingness that covers Elysium and is by far the largest aspect of the world's geography.^[5] The Insulinde is an oceanic isola that houses the largest body of water on all of Elysium.^[5] Le Caillou is the greater of the two main islands, containing Revachol, and is the fourth largest land mass on all of Elysium.^[5]

The Dolorian Century was a golden age of Elysium, named after one of the most famous religious figures, Dolores Dei.^[5] In the center of a roundabout in Martinaise sits a statue of one of Revachol's corrupt leaders, Filippe III.^[5] The game's title is a double entendre meaning "I learn Elysium," with Elysium being the name of the game's setting.^[7]