Esoteric Ebb Reviews
Esoteric Ebb is a balancing act. Between irony and seriousness, between political investigation and fantasy comedy, between player freedom and authorial identity. A CRPG with character, albeit with some flaws.
Review in Italian | Read full review
What begins as a Disco Elysium imitation quickly grows into an exciting and compelling RPG experience that stands firmly on its own.
While Esoteric Ebb certainly doesn’t try to avoid the direct comparisons to Disco Elysium’s style, it manages to stand out through its original setting and entertaining set of mysteries. The ingrained usage of skill checks to help guide conversations and what the game reveals to players helps keep them engaged, with plenty of highly enjoyable quests and interactions to be had all the way through.
Where Esoteric Ebb feels new and fresh is in its approach to the fantasy genre.
This is a unique, clever RPG that dares to choose well-written dialogue over action-packed spectacle.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Esoteric Ebb is the videogame equivalent of the best kind of cover band – one that understands, remixes, hybridises and ultimately shows great affection for its inspirations. While its immediate and constant comparisons to Disco Elysium do often do a disservice to its narration and companionship, its writing, thoughtful reflections on chance, sense of humour and largely successful melding of D&D 5e systems with Disco Elysium’s storytelling creates a flawed but otherwise accomplished foray into a richly designed world.
Weaving Terry Pratchett, Terry Gilliam and more, Esoteric Ebb is a comedic D&D adventure where a waylaid Cleric is tasked with solving a crime, days before the world's first election.
If you have been eagerly anticipating a worthy successor to Disco Elysium, Esoteric Ebb does a respectable job filling that void while offering some of its own fresh ideas.
However, if players embrace the game’s pacing and accept the rules of this peculiar “tabletop campaign,” they will discover a surprisingly rich microworld full of humor, melancholy, and strange human as well as non-human stories.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
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Review in German | Read full review
A game that will feel like a remedy for those craving Disco Elysium. Those who can’t find an FRP group but still want to dive into a tabletop-style adventure can also pull up a chair and join in without hesitation. With a bit more production backing, it could have been a true contender for the top of its genre.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Esoteric Ebb is a multitude of things: a low-stakes political mystery, a comedy with solid writing and fleshed-out characters that have personalities even if there are no vocal performances to go with them, and it's a good-looking game that feels like the spirit of Disco Elysium. Most of all, it's an enjoyable experience that begs for multiple playthroughs to see all of the different scenarios and personalities. This is a pleasant surprise of a title, and those who value good dialogue above all else will be very happy with Esoteric Ebb.
Esoteric Ebb is one of the few games that manages to combine tabletop role-playing, story-driven CRPG mechanics, and player choice into a single, enjoyable experience.
Esoteric Ebb has an incredibly cool art style, a living world I enjoy spending time in, a great and compelling story, a wonderful soundtrack and sound design, a script that is at times hysterically funny, and both a quest, level, and loot system that are excellent. If you're a CRPG fan who enjoys games like Disco Elysium and Citizen Sleeper, Esoteric Ebb is a must-play. I just wish it had the confidence to be a little more itself, and a little less a copy of Disco Elysium, because when Esoteric Ebb occasionally does step out of its inspiration and brings something entirely new to the table, the game is at its absolute best. The comparison with its big brother makes the few weaknesses here more visible. At the same time, when those weaknesses only emerge because the game is being measured against one of the greatest games ever made, Esoteric Ebb is still one of the best games of 2026 so far.
Review in Unknown | Read full review
Esoteric Ebb will delight those who love fantastical tabletop adventures but have been craving a single-player experience, especially if you are remotely into medieval stuff, silly stuff, political stuff, and/or male identity stuff. I am not alone in thinking that it's one of the best successors to Disco Elysium, a game I very much loved. There's strong potential for Esoteric Ebb to get a sequel, or even some DLC, and I'll be lining up to try it. I think Esoteric Ebb is an excellent example of the CRPG genre, though it is pretty deep into its systems and those who are new to this style or don't enjoy it will be hard-pressed to click with it. But if you do love a TTRPG, you're gonna love it. I'm confident that, at the end of the year, I'll be putting it on my list of best indie games.
Is a remarkable achievement — a solo developer’s love letter to the CRPG and tabletop traditions that creates something genuinely new from familiar inspirations. The Disco Elysium comparisons will follow it everywhere and they’re not wrong, but they’re also not the whole story. Norvik is Bodegård’s city. The Cleric is his character. The humour, the warmth, the political earnestness — these are his voice, and by the end of a playthrough they’re entirely recognisable as such. At $24.99, Esoteric Ebb offers more genuine creativity per dollar than almost any other CRPG on the market. The rough edges and occasional over-reliance on its inspirations are the honest price of a singular creative vision. For fans of Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, and narrative RPGs generally — this is absolutely essential. For more RPG coverage, check out our full reviews section.
While there are plenty of epic RPGs on the market, there’s never been one that has the bones of a campaign with the meat of a moron. You’ve never seen a game hilariously punishing you, in real time, for being a dink, while simultaneously urging you forward with your stupidity. It’s simultaneously serious and satirical, and both are completely genuine. The tonality, the flow and the atmosphere make this a phenomenal marathon game.
Make no mistake: Esoteric Ebb is just what the doctor ordered for a quick-witted, choice-heavy, path-altering, and experience-defining RPG title that knows how to tinker with your cerebral mentionables.
Despite the occasional punishing dice roll, Esoteric Ebb is a stunning achievement in narrative and gameplay design that is a sheer joy to play from start to end. It takes a familiar framework and brings it to life with a world that reacts wonderfully to every chaotic choice you make. And sure, it does borrow some ideas from the greats of the genre, but with Esoteric Ebb adding its own unique ideas and sense of flair to the mix, it stands out perfectly alongside them as another must–play release.
For those who appreciate dense narrative games and experiences that emphasize character role-playing, Esoteric Ebb offers one of the most interesting proposals in the genre in recent years.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review