Dead as Disco is the kind of game that has foundations so good, I’m almost more excited to see what fans continue to do with it in the modding scene than I am for when it eventually exits Early Access. Even in this incomplete state, Brain Jar Games’ rhythmic beat ’em up has all the makings of a musical score-chasing classic, and it already has all the tools it needs to sustain itself for years to come.
Dead as Disco scratches the same toe-tapping itch that games like Hi-Fi Rush and Bullets Per Minute have in recent years, with you aiming to sync every punch, kick, dodge, and parry to a multi-genre soundtrack and all that stylish action drenched in a neon coat of paint. It’s snappy and responsive as protagonist Charlie Disco floats across a battlefield slapping fools around in time with its multi-genre soundtrack.
Though Dead as Disco telegraphs every attack by nature of it being in time with the music, it’s not so straightforward that you can just close your eyes and tap your controller to the beat. Enemies overwhelm, barraging Charlie with attacks that you have to dodge on beat just as precisely as you throw punches, and an incoming projectile can descend upon you mid-combo and throw off your groove entirely. The game rewards and demands rhythmic precision, like an angry band director passive-aggressively pulling out a metronome, but it’s not so strict that one mistake could throw off your entire song.
The Early Access levels have you facing Charlie’s ex-bandmates, taking out waves of their thugs to distinct music that plays up their personalities, ranging from angsty emo rock to bumping rap. Dead as Disco’s eclectic music and aesthetic choices are a fitting match for the Suda 51-esque cast of weirdos who banter and boogie their way to bashing each other’s skulls in. Those foundations make it a great brawler to chase high scores in, but what’s going to give the game longevity is that it opens up those systems to custom music, as well.
I’d been seeing clips of Dead as Disco on my feeds months before it entered Early Access earlier this month, to the point where I didn’t even realize it wasn’t already out. That’s because players had already been using the game’s 2025 demo to create custom levels with any song they wanted, and Brain Jar Games has added tools to help you fine-tune and calibrate the beat to each song, so it’s not just a matter of uploading a song and then hoping the game figures out the beat and stays on it. A finished custom level that creates fights to the beat of a song is just as much a delight to watch as it is to play, with your hands dancing across a controller to the beat.
Rhythm games can live or die by a setlist, and even the best ones can get stale after you hear the limited assortment of songs on repeat while trying to reach the top of a leaderboard. Dead as Disco has already paved the way for a self-sustaining community of music fans to keep the game fresh for years to come, and it’s not even out of Early Access yet. Brain Jar Games clearly has its finger on the pulse of what keeps rhythm games in the public consciousness already, and I’m excited to see just how much it uses that knowledge as the game evolves and eventually reaches its 1.0 update next year.