Esoteric Ebb is a single-player CRPG inspired by the freedom of tabletop adventures. Unravel a political conspiracy with your goblin sidekick. Roll dice in tense encounters. Become a cleric of legends or completely ruin the campaign.
Developed by: Christoffer Bodegård
Played on: Steam
Length: 20 hours (35 hours for completionists)
A review key was provided by Raw Fury.
Like many others, I became a CRPG fan overnight when Baldur’s Gate 3 released back in 2023. It was my first CRPG, which in retrospect seems like an ambitious learning curve to undertake, and my first playthrough of the game was rightfully chaotic. My wizard had the messiest stats, my party was poorly equipped, and I barely made it to the final battle in one piece. I have been deeply in love with CRPGs and TTRPGs ever since.
Esoteric Ebb is not Baldur’s Gate 3, but it is Dungeons & Dragons. Compared to the grand quests of magnificent proportions that you might expect from most CRPGs, Esoteric Ebb feels more like a homebrew campaign you run with a group of friends in someone’s living room. The world that solo developer Christopher Bodegård creates is familiar but original, and the implementation of classes and spells are a little loosey goosey, but that hardly matters when the game follows the cardinal rule of fun.
Even the beginning of the campaign doesn’t seem all that serious at first. You play as the world’s worst Cleric, assigned to investigate an exploding tea shop in the heart of the city because no one else wanted to take up the job. Unfortunately, you only have five days to resolve the case before the city hosts its first-ever general elections. Even worse, you have absolutely no clue who you’re voting for. Then come the voices in your head.
Bodegård wears his Disco Elysium influences on his sleeve, but nothing makes this more obvious than the multitude of voices arguing inside your head. Each voice represents a different character stat, from the money-minded opportunist Dexterity, to the aggressive nationalist Strength. Depending on your highest stat, the way you view the world also changes accordingly. Wisdom allows you to accurately interpret social cues, Dexterity keeps you on your toes in conversation and combat, and Intelligence informs you about the world around you.
While you start as a Cleric which is a Wisdom-based class by definition, the game doesn’t technically confine you to playing as one. Load all your points into Strength and become a Cleric with an incredible right hook, or give it all to Charisma and charm your way into everyone’s pants. In fact, let’s take it a step further. You don’t even have to take a single step into the tea shop in order to complete the game.
Esoteric Ebb grants you an exorbitant amount of freedom to decide how you want to experience it, and Bodegård makes it exceedingly clear that the stupidest solution is always the best one. Flirt with the celestial being, run headfirst into that trap, eat sixty-six apples, and embrace the cringe in everything you do. You can even wear a bucket on your head, even if your goblin sidekick will judge you heavily for it.
A minor touch about Esoteric Ebb that I love is the fact that the game doesn’t allow you to create multiple save files. The game autosaves and you can overwrite your save file for a guaranteed hard save, but you cannot load save files. That’s right, no save scumming here. It’s a choice that I actually love, because it allows you to get fully immersed in the game and lends weight to every decision you make.
At the same time, Esoteric Ebb introduces underlined choices in dialogue, which refer to choices that our “Dungeon Master” Bodegård deems interesting. Of course, interesting might lead you to certain death as much as it might lead you to a hilarious outcome, so you get to decide if you want to take the risk. That said, the game puts up enough guardrails help you avoid death. Not to mention, death doesn’t mark the permanent end of your run, even if it might set you back a little in time. So, go forth and make stupid decisions!
Yet despite its largely humorous outlook, there is genuinely incredible character and world building at work here. Bodegård creates an entire civilisation so dense in lore that the sprawling streets and underground cities are barely enough to pack it all in. What more, he balances humour and drama with incredible finesse, jumping from moments that will make you cry with laughter, to drama that will give you goosebumps.
To say anything further about the meat of the game would be spoiling your adventure, so I’ll try to wrap this up concisely: Esoteric Ebb is a memorable experience and one of the best CRPGs I’ll have played this year. Christopher Bodegård’s strength of writing screams through every pore of this game, further elevated by the gorgeous art from Oscar Westberg and breathed to life by the incredible soundtrack composed and produced by Anders Bach, Brian Batz, and Kristian Paulsen.
While the game may find inspiration from Disco Elysium and Dungeons & Dragons in many ways, it is hardly a simple mish-mash of the two. Esoteric Ebb swiftly rises into its own identity from its opening moments and only continues to blossom the more you explore and engage with its world. There’s also a surprising amount of secrets that I missed on my playthrough that you might find in yours — so good luck on the hunt.
Only one word of advice? Stay away from the walkthroughs. You will be tempted to Google the solutions to puzzles or find all the secrets in your first run, but your esoteric experience will be far richer if you just allow it to play out. After all, if you ever miss out on something, it’s the perfect excuse for a second go.
Verdict: A Must-Play For D&D Fans
Esoteric Ebb may have been heavily inspired by Disco Elysium and Dungeons & Dragons, but the game is hardly a simple mish-mash of the two. Creator Christopher Bodegård puts his own stamp on CRPGs with incredibly strong writing and world building, all while balancing humour and drama with incredible finesse. Without a doubt, one of the best CRPGs I’ll have played this year.
