While I remember the limits of rhythm games were once offerings like DanceDanceRevolution and its various clones in arcades and later on PC and consoles, in recent years, developers have been taking the rhythm genre into different areas. One such take was 2023’s Hi Fi Rush for PC and Xbox, later rolling out on PlayStation 5, combining rhythm-based mechanics with action combat and becoming a literal surprise hit given its same-day announcement and release. Now in 2026, we have another developer – Brain Jar Games – doing their own addictive and hyper-stylised take on the genre through Dead as Disco, now available on PC via Steam Early Access. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves… how does the game fare? Read on to find out!
The premise of Dead as Disco is fun. In this game, you step into the shades of Charlie Disco, a musician who wakes up a decade after his purported death, only to discover that his old bandmates have moved on, gone solo, and become rather successful sell-outs in the process. His mission, then, is to track each of them down, knock some sense into them, and drag the group back together for one final show, all while piecing together exactly who put him in the ground. Pulling the strings is Vice, a floating skull who holds Charlie to a rather inconvenient contract of one soul for one night. It is a story about fame and selling out, fused with plenty of tongue-in-cheek and over-the-top humour, which is not the deepest experience you will play this year, but is more than enjoyable to keep you going. My only real gripe is that, being Early Access, the whole thing stops rather abruptly with chapters still locked away, so you only get a part of the full experience – which is understandable for a game which hasn’t released fully yet.
I will be honest: upon acquiring a new PC just a few weeks ago, Dead as Disco was the first game I played when I set it up. With a new monitor and an enhanced graphics card above my previously trusty 1080 Ti, part of this could just be the pure technological difference from my original setup, but… aesthetically, the game is an absolute riot. The whole game leans into a bold, neon-soaked comic book look, all funky shapes and halftone textures, the sort of thing that feels lifted from a particularly stylish animated film. Crucially, for a game built entirely around timing, it never lets the spectacle get in the way of clarity, so you can always read what’s happening even when the screen is a wash of colour. This is aided by every boss battle being truly unique, not just from a gameplay perspective, but also from an aesthetic perspective. Each stage loves to reinvent itself mid-fight too, flipping from a three-dimensional brawl into a sidescrolling scrap one moment and having you defend the peak of a pyramid the next.
The music is the beating heart of Dead as Disco; after all, this is a rhythm action game. Rather than committing to a single sound, the soundtrack bounces across various genres, not just disco, with a good chunk of original material. The headline act, though, has to be the custom music feature, which lets you import your own tracks and tweak their BPM to fit, effectively handing you near-endless replay value. It’s a touch fiddly, and certain genres or songs that shift their rhythm about don’t play nicely with it just yet, but it’s a brilliant inclusion all the same – especially with this being an early access game where the pre-defined content may only last a few hours at most.
So how does Dead as Disco actually play? At its core, this is a rhythm-driven brawler very much in the lineage of Hi Fi Rush, with a flowing style to its combat. where combat is locked to the tempo of whatever track is playing. The key wrinkle is that you don’t have to press your buttons in perfect time with the beat for things to work. You can mash away, and your attacks will still land cleanly, but time them to the rhythm and you’re rewarded with bonus damage, perfect dodges, and a healthier score multiplier, with an optional on-screen indicator there to help you find the groove. That multiplier climbs as you chain hits and avoid taking damage, and it’s tied directly to your output, so a long, clean streak doesn’t just look good but genuinely makes Charlie hit harder. Your health, meanwhile, starts off rather stingy at four Hearts before you’ve sunk anything into upgrades. While the decision not to be strict about timing attacks to rhythm does weaken the experience, it at least makes the game a little more accessible to newcomers to the genre… or those who may not find the beat in a particular song.
Dig into the systems, and there’s more here than first meets the eye. Your basic kit covers light and heavy strikes, a ranged option, and dedicated dodge and counter inputs that trigger off prompts that flash above the enemies. You can cancel out of most actions into another, and a supply of takedown tokens lets you pull a foe out of the fight before they get a swing in. Performing well fills a Fever Meter, which you spend on flashier special moves, and beating each boss hands you one of their abilities along with a small upgrade tree to pour your Fans into, those being the currency you earn by landing your attacks on-beat – spanning from extra hearts for more life in battle, to some genuinely fun special moves.
Beyond the campaign, the content splits across a few modes. The story stages task you with clearing waves of enemies, of which there’s a decent variety, from quicker foes you can only really counter to shielded types that need breaking down, before the boss themselves arrives for a multi-phase showdown. Outside of that, Challenge mode both teaches you the ropes and then tests you under modified conditions, Free Play hands you the full library of roughly thirty tracks to take on at your leisure or upload your own to, and Infinite Disco throws a wider spread of songs your way. There are two difficulty settings on offer, too, with Easy widening the timing windows, easing enemy aggression, and granting extra Hearts for the less rhythmically inclined and the normal difficulty being your base experience. Once the short campaign wraps, you’ll need to make your own fun through challenges, score chasing, and custom tracks, though a roadmap promising co-op, a mix-and-match genre climb, and level creation tools suggests plenty more to come.
It’s quite something to think about how far the rhythm genre has travelled since those arcade dance mats I grew up tapping away on, and Dead as Disco feels like the latest proof that there’s still plenty of fresh ground to cover. Even in its Early Access state, Brain Jar Games has put together a package that looks fantastic, sounds even better thanks to a genre-hopping soundtrack and that wonderfully moreish custom music feature, and plays in a way that welcomes newcomers while still giving the dedicated something to chew on. It isn’t without its rough edges, of course, with a story that ends just as it gets going, a handful of boss fights that overstay their welcome, and a content list that asks you to make a fair bit of your own fun for now. Yet much like Hi Fi Rush before it, this is a game that takes a familiar idea and gives it a confident, stylish spin, and with a roadmap stretching well into the future, I get the feeling Charlie Disco’s encore is going to be well worth sticking around for. The band, it seems, is only just getting warmed up.
Final Score for Dead as Disco’s Early Access Release
All playtesting was conducted on the PC Early Access build of Dead as Disco. A review code was supplied by Brain Jar Games to facilitate this review.
Dead as Disco is now available to purchase for PC via Steam Early Access.
