CRPG Esoteric Ebb with devils and drunk sphinxes launches March 3 on Steam

Swedish solo developer Christoffer Bodegard has revealed a trailer for his CRPG *Esoteric Ebb* and announced a release date of March 3. The game is being pitched as "Disco-like" – a term Bodegard claims he coined himself to describe games in the vein of Disco Elysium.

You wake up in a morgue with half the river in your boots, surrounded by ten thousand rotting apples, several corpses, and one zombie. Out of your depth and with no official backup, you head into your beloved city to investigate an impossible mystery no one wants you to solve.

Juggle factions and play them against each other. Explore the streets and tunnels of a fantasy metropolis. Debate devils, drunk sphinxes, and all manner of fantastical fools in a world where mythological creatures sell newspapers at corner shops and ideologies overtake the ramblings of dead gods.

*Esoteric Ebb* is set in the post-magical fantasy city of Norvik, five days before its first-ever election. A tea shop explosion sends the Cleric – a government agent specializing in esoteric events – to investigate a conspiracy nobody wants solved.

Mechanically, the game draws on a D&D-style system where each character stat has its own voice that chimes in during dialogue, and a failed dice roll can often turn out to be more interesting than success.