I love action games of all kinds: beat-em-ups, character action, you name it, I probably can name a game or two in that sub-genre I adore. I also love rhythm games, even though I’m usually pretty bad at them. If they’re not purely focused on the beat, I can still get in the groove pretty often but not enough to clear any hard or even sometimes normal difficulty modes. Hi-Fi Rush combined these disparate genres together in a game that felt made specifically for me back in 2023, and Dead as Disco is doing it again now in 2026. The game recently hit Early Access on Steam, and frankly it’s been hard to tear myself away from the game long enough to write this article. If that’s not one of the highest compliments I can give, I’m not sure what is.
In Dead as Disco, you play as Charlie Disco, who’s dead. A decade after his passing, he sells his soul for one more night on Earth to get the band back together (by force) and play one last show. It’s a cool premise, but not much time is spent on plot here. You’ll get the setup and intro dialogue with each boss, but that’s about it. For a game like this, that’s fine with me, though I’d certainly like to learn more about what’s going on and who these characters are in the final game.
This baby is all about the gameplay, and it is sublime, leaning more towards a beat-em-up than Hi-Fi Rush did. Controls are simple: just tap the attack button to the beat of whatever song is currently playing and Charlie will throw hands. Of course, no one’s just going to sit there and take it, so you have two options when a foe attacks you: dodges and counters. Enemies will display the proper response to their attack above their head, though most moves can simply be dodged if you don’t feel confident in your counter timing. However, perfectly timing a counter will deal a lot more damage for free, especially against bosses.
Once you’ve successfully composed some chin music with a foe, you’ll need to finish them off with the B button. Otherwise, if left alone for too long, they’ll heal up and rejoin the fight. You need to be careful when you trigger a finisher, as while you’re invincible during the animation it’ll leave you vulnerable for a second after it's over. This caught me off guard quite a few times and did feel a little cheap, but it’s not too hard to adjust to.
Finally, you have a few special attacks that build up as you fight. The skull icons will slowly fill up as you deal damage, and you can spend one skull for an instant takedown or a big chunk of damage on tougher enemies and bosses by pressing B and Y at the same time. It took me a while to figure out what the skulls did as I don’t think it was explained in the tutorial. Fighting will also build up a blue meter under your health bar, which can be spent on special moves you learn by defeating bosses. There are five to use in Early Access; you start with Charlie’s special which lets you deal rapid hits to a single target, making for a great filler option. You can learn a big guitar AoE attack, a special counter move, and more. It’s fun to experiment with them and see how best you can use them to keep up your combo in a boss fight and get a high score.
Every level in Dead as Disco is a boss fight, with you facing off against their goons before eventually making it to the headliner themselves, with a fancy animated cutscene to mark the transition. The four available at this stage of early access are amazing fights, with their own musical styles and mechanics. Hemlock’s is probably my favorite simply because it uses a remix of Maniac, but I’ve played each multiple times either because I died or just want to experience it again and do better. Replayability is the name of the game here, and it excels at providing you reasons to come back and hone your skills.
Aside from the boss fights, there’s also the Infinite Disco mode, which allows for free play of any unlocked song against waves of enemies or you can attempt tons of unique challenges to hone your skills. I’ve had a blast slowly going through these challenges, but the real star of this mode is the ability to add custom music to the game. Just browse to any song file on your computer, do a quick calibration to get the beat right, and start fighting. The game does recommend songs with around 130 to 200 bpm, but you can insert whatever you want. Everything I’ve thrown at the game has worked pretty well, with even some automated takedowns seemingly tied to the music. I hope the developers eventually share whatever tech they’ve got going in the background to make this work so well, because this is exactly the kind of feature I want to see in more titles.
I’m already having way too much fun with Dead as Disco, and somehow there’s still more to come in the future. The developers have even released a roadmap for Early Access, targeting launch sometime in 2027 with full voice over, new skills and music, fashion options (I need that Type B body ASAP), and even a co-op multiplayer mode and mod support. I’m absolutely stoked for whatever the team has in store for us, and you can bet I’ll be writing about the game more in the future.
