For the longest time, Disco Elysium was one of the highest rated video games in history. Now, it is second only to Baldur’s Gate 3. Clearly, they had the best QA testers because there are no developer-approved official cheat codes for this game.
Officially, there are not a lot of official cheat codes available for Disco Elysium. However, there is one cheat in particular that is incredibly popular among the playerbase. This was provided by a Steam user, and our contributors tested it out.
First, players must start a new game. Then, they must save immediately as soon as they can. Afterwards, they must locate their save files. On Windows 10 save files can be found in in C:\Users\(your user name)\AppData\LocalLow\ZAUM Studio\Disco Elysium\SaveGames
Copy .zip archive just in case. Extract the file ending in “.2nd.ntwtf.json”. Open it with a Notepad. Search for line “INITIAL_DICE”. Then, this will be visible:
“AbilityModifierCauseMap”: {
“INT”: [
{
“type”: “INITIAL_DICE”,
“amount”: 6,
“explanation”: “Intellect base”,
“skillType”: “NONE”,
“modifierCause”: null
“INT” means Intellect. Below gonna be similar parts of code labeled PSY, FYS and MOT. Those are 4 basic skill trees.
Change “amount”: 6 (there gonna be a number you choose when you created your character) to any number you like. Personally I tried 20 for every skill tree and I think that’s enough for a whole game. If you want just a little headstart and not heavy on cheating – choose 6 for all four skill trees.
Save the file and put it back into save archive. Just drag and drop your previously extracted and modified “.2nd.ntwtf.json” back into save game .zip. If you zip the new archive with the same name yourself – it won’t work. Drag and drop! Load your save and enjoy!
1) In order to pay it off yourself, go to the Pine Rep lady Joyce and beg for the 130 real from her after a physical check (i believe) to which she will give you 130 real (or 100 if you brought it lower as I assume the intent from the devs was to not give money to you this way)
2) If you fail to find option 1, then the Ltn. will pay it off for your using seized hubcaps, this will provide you either 100 or 130 real depending on the cost Garte is at (as of day 3 the money the Ltn kept has not come up again so I can assume it is just for comradery)
The only difference (to my experience) is that the Ltn likes you more for paying off the debt yourself, however utilizing Aces Low, some conversation, and maybe sharing the sandwhich will get you to max trust level anyway (I got the achievement without even sharing the sandwhich)
To sum up, there is a way to pay off the debt yourself and there is an automatically triggered way to pay off your debt otherwise.
Now after explaining the situation, let me say how you exploit it so that you have ample amount of money for the rest of the game (as far as I can see day 3)
First, don’t lower the price with Garte as I assume Joyce will lower her bribe/non-bribe in kind, then go through what is needed to get that 130 real from Joyce.
If at this point in Disco Elysium you stay above the required amount of money, at 22:00, Ltn. says good on you and then you get to pay off the money you owe, there is no option to lie about how much money you have with you.
In order to get the game to find that you don’t have enough money, you need to go spend money until you are below what Garte asks for (being even 1 cent over will allow you to pay and leave you in dire straights so beware if you actually want to pay). In my playthrough, I paid 15 real to get the pants from Cuno considering that your normal pants will stick around a while otherwise and could impact your skill checks, alternatively go buy the boombox from the pawnshop considering it has signficant purpose later in the story (which I will not ruin here) although buying any amount of items to go below what Garte asks will be sufficient.
Now, because you are under what is required, you would be unable to continue the game as you have nowhere to stay and the devs didnt program that in this early ( though I assume you will either lose or have issues later if you can’t pay the 20 real Garte asks for each day after).
So now the part with the Ltn. will trigger which will allow you an additional 130/100 real depending on Garte’s price, then you can go pay the bill with Garte and you will still have the remaining money left from Joyce.
At this point, you have 100/130 more real than the devs planned for you to have ( which considering that the only item over 50 real I have seen is the stop light which I assume you won’t find enough money to buy).
This will allow you to play at your own pace for the most part without having to worry about money for either the room or for the boombox or anything else farther in the game. For more updates on any new cheats our contributors find, check out our other articles.