A new rhythm-driven RPG, Nocturne, has hit Steam, blending traditional role-playing systems with battles fought almost entirely to music. The game is already making some noise on Steam, earning an Overwhelmingly Positive rating from players.
Nocturne arrived on September 22 after more than a decade of development at Pracy Studios, a small indie team led by founder Benjamin Pracy. The project had already started building a decent audience before launch, with its Steam Next Fest demo reportedly passing an impressive 30,000 downloads back in June. Pracy’s idea was to create something that worked as both a full RPG and a proper rhythm game, rather than treating music as an occasional minigame or timed button prompt or overall afterthought. Pracy Studios’ final product may be of interest to those who enjoyed Hi-Fi Rush as they wait for what Tango Gameworks has planned for the future.
Nocturne Turns RPG Battles Into a Rhythm Game
Check out Nocturne on Steam
Fans of post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories may feel right at home with Nocturne, taking place long after humanity has disappeared, leaving behind a Digital Afterlife that has been silent for roughly 1,000 years. Players explore a deteriorating virtual world while meeting characters who raise questions about death, memory, and what it actually means to be alive. Outside of battle, the game comes with familiar RPG systems like leveling, stats, equipment, shops, bosses, exploration, and hidden secrets. Its main campaign reportedly lasts just over 10 hours and contains over 100,000 words of story.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
However, combat is where Nocturne stops looking like a traditional RPG and starts getting into the Hi-Fi Rush groove. Battles turn into a four-lane rhythm game where players hit falling notes, hold longer inputs, and build energy to spend on attacks. Timing an attack just before an enemy strikes can stagger it, while missing too many notes gives opponents a chance to fight back. Some encounters also mess with the rhythm interface itself, changing how players read and react to the music, and keeping fans on their toes. The game additionally offers six difficulty options, plus an auto-battle setting for players more interested in the story than mastering the rhythm mechanics.
That makes Nocturne easy to recommend to players who enjoyed how Hi-Fi Rush made music part of the action rather than background noise. The two games do approach that idea in different ways, with Hi-Fi Rush mixing rhythm into satisfying 3D character-action combat and Nocturne essentially turning every encounter into a dedicated rhythm game. However, Nocturne takes that idea even further with 101 playable tracks, an Arcade Mode for chasing higher scores, and boss music recorded live by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra.
Rhythm games still remain a fairly niche corner of gaming, but releases like Hi-Fi Rush, Metal: Hellsinger, Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson, and now Nocturne show how easily those mechanics can work inside other genres. What’s more, players seem especially happy with this release. As of this writing, Nocturne holds a 99% positive rating from 518 Steam user reviews, while some gaming outlets have even awarded it a perfect score and praised its story, visuals, music, and battles. After 10 years in development, Pracy Studios appears to have made Nocturne‘s unique combination of RPG systems and rhythm gaming the hit it was looking for.
- Released
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June 30, 2026
- Developer(s)
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Pracy Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Pracy Studios
- Number of Players
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Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Unknown
