Esoteric Ebb is one of the few games that fights for democracy

I've told everyone I know to play Esoteric Ebb, usually along with me saying, “It's like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign gained class consciousness,” which… doesn't seem as cool to everyone else as it does to me.

Ever since I finished Christoffer Bodegård's fascinating indie creation, I've been digesting its themes. You could say I've pondered the point of the game — are people still pondering? In the end, I have come to the (obvious) conclusion that Esoteric Ebb is ultimately about democracy.

It's not something you see portrayed so explicitly in video games because, let's face it, voting for the least bad capitalist isn't sexy… but it's important. We would all much rather be at the forefront of a revolution or toppling monarchies, but when it comes to actionable change, nothing is more important than voting.

Esoteric Ebb informs the player, whether they like it or not

To give you some background, Esoteric Ebb casts the player in the role of a priest tasked with solving the mystery of an exploding tea shop. To complicate matters… you've been murdered. After being revived at the local morgue, you're told you only have five days to solve the case before the town's first ever election.

Like any good campaign, everything in Esoteric Ebb is pending on this choice. Just like in Disco Elysium, all of your skills (the six abilities from Dungeons & Dragons) have personalities and communicate with you during each playthrough.

Each of these skills are largely aligned to a political party or movement present in the game. Styrka represents the nationalist, fascist-leaning party Norvik. It is a skill and a movement that values masculinity and conservative values. At the same time, Wisdom represents the Azgalists, a communist movement born out of the dwarves' military actions.

Then there are the Freestriders (Pocket Skill), a party that sells universal suffrage as a way to achieve a capitalist oligopoly. The Arcanist Party (Intelligence) wants a magocracy, a system where the most powerful magicians are in charge. The constitution is a cryptic one, adapting itself to a kind of self-interested anarchy. Finally, Charisma is apolitical and often advocates any decision that keeps the cleric out of trouble.

Esoteric Ebb presents each of these ideologies with nuance — Strength is not necessarily the big bad, and wisdom is not always wise. You can see that the Force longs for meaning, something stripped away by the ruthless cruelty of the world. The side mission involving the Norvik party is about disenfranchised young men who have turned to oppression because society has chewed them up and spat them out.

The party in Norvik is the status quo – the theocracy that is transitioning from is currently run by the party's leaders – and they are leading in the opinion polls. The young men fear change because even if life is bad right now, the alternative could be even worse; feminism can make their lives even worse, or so they think.

When dealing with the Azgalists, the player is asked to decide whether incremental change under social democracy is preferable to an unpopular revolutionary movement, which remains pure of its ideals but will never achieve electoral power. This ideological schism is portrayed through a conflict between an experienced party member who has been agitating for Azgalism for decades and a younger party member, angry at the world and ready to lead a revolution.

You are subject to an internal debate between your skills for almost every choice in the game, forcing you to hear an ideologically balanced conversation for every decision. I like to think this is an allegory for being politically informed – sure, you hear propaganda, but you hear everyone's propaganda before you get to make an informed decision all on your own.

Voting is everything

There are plenty of great hijinks in Esoteric Ebb as well, but Bodegård has placed almost everything through a political lens because… everything is pending the election. Although some people wish otherwise, every action we take (or don't take) in our own lives is political. If you give yourself over to mindless consumption, you quietly submit to a world driven by business and consumption.

At one point in the game I was asked to give up my voice card – which gives -1 intelligence, funnily enough – for safe passage through an area. I thought to myself, if I can't vote when the election comes, everything I've done up until then: the ideological statements, the people I've helped, the mysteries I've solved, would all be worthless. At great personal risk to my character, I hung up on my voting card.

Voter turnout in the 2024 US presidential election was 64.1 percent, about 90 million people in the country did not vote (The Guardian). Across the European Union, the average turnout in national elections is a similar figure (TrueDEM).

Political participation is steadily declining as people neglect to exercise their democratic rights. Simply put, apathy paves the way for wealth inequality, fascism, bigotry and genocide. Unfortunately, democracy dies in the light. It's rare to have a game (or any medium for that matter) put so much emphasis on a single voice, but Esoteric Ebb does just that, and I'm so grateful for that.

During the game's final dialogue, the odds – a motif in a game of dice – were 50/50 that Norvik would have a bright future. As my priest approached the ballot box, the odds ticked up to 51/49. I cast my vote.