disco elysium was one of 2019s standout games thanks to its rich and often absurd narrative and brilliant worldbuilding but years before the games launch its writer and lead designer robert kurvitz penned a novel set in the same world titled sacred and terrible air it was originally published in estonian in 2013 and included art by aleksander rostov who worked as a designer and art director on disco elysiumas spotted by our friends at pc gamer the novel has now been fully translated into english for the first time fans have the choice of two versions although neither is official one comes from tequillasunset5 whos tried to ensure consistency between their translated version and disco elysium changing some words and names to match how they appear in the game while also trying to retain as much of the novels subtext and style as possible it features illustrations by rostov as well as a glossary an epilogue and a deleted scene previously shared on the blog of disco elysium developer zaum you can find it in both pdf and epub format herethe second english translation of sacred and terrible air comes courtesy of group ibex and is a heavily edited version of a machine translation that went through several intensive rewrites to bring it closer to the original this one doesnt contain the glossary or illustrations but like the aforementioned option has the deleted content and epilogueaccording to kurvitz when released sacred and terrible air sold just 1000 copies given the success disco elysium has enjoyed if an official english version were to happen it would likely prove very popular though as he was forced out of zaum in 2021 and is now suing the publisher that doesnt look like its going to come about anytime soon if at allfor more on this exceptional rpg check out the making of disco elysium how zaum created one of the most original rpgs of the decade