If you’ve ever reached a flow state in a beat ’em up game, you know that their large-scale brawls quickly become something akin to a combo-driven dance. If you adapt to the choreography, you’re rewarded with a symphony of violence and a high score. Developer Brain Jar Games’ Dead as Disco feels like a natural next step for the genre — a literal “beat ’em up to the beat.”
And make no mistake, you’ll definitely be putting the beatdown on some eclectic characters as Charlie Disco, a former chart-topping rockstar who’s recently returned from the dead and is looking to resurrect his career by getting the band back together. There’s only one problem: His bandmates are the very people who betrayed him, left him for dead 10 years earlier and went on to sell out and sign a major record deal. Awkward.
What follows is a boss rush in which Disco literally knocks some sense into his old friends one by one, dragging them back to the club they used to play at before they made it big. It comes across as an earnest, lighthearted pastiche of much darker revenge stories like The Crow and Drive — I mean, just look at the back of the main character’s jacket. It might as well have a scorpion motif slapped on it.
While parts of Dead as Disco’s Steam Early Access release feel a little undercooked — the purchasable club decorations and bandmate side quests come across as afterthoughts, at least for now — the fundamentals are strong. Combat is snappy and responsive, and the four story levels in the current build play out like impressive, interactive concerts, where the visual spectacle alone can feel worth the price of admission.
Boss fights are special, multiphase endurance tests packed with bright lights and unique mechanics, and they’re an absolute tour de force, which they should be, given that they’re the biggest addition Dead as Disco’s Early Access build has over the demo.
Charlie Disco will have to take on some of the best — and most dangerous — musicians in the world to get his band back together and take the fight to the record company.
Trope-y, flashy and unabashedly in love with the art of music
It’s hard not to wonder what kind of music Charlie Disco was making in his heyday, especially since his band is such a disparate mix of musicians with standout character designs. While several bosses haven’t made it into the game just yet, there are currently four high-priority targets Disco can take on in any order he chooses, like if Mega Man fought with a whole lot more groove.
Charlie tracks down each of his former bandmates across their own distinct urban zones. The acidic, green-tinged punk rocker Hemlock throws down in the city’s subways. The refined rapper Prophet takes the fight from the streets up to the highest penthouses. The heavy-metal cyborg Dex shreds on an electric guitar while Tesla coils in the power plant’s core. And the AI-generated K-pop star Arora quite literally launches your showdown into outer space.
The boss fights are extremely creative and borrow artistically from real-life genre fare. Prophet, for instance, attacks you with physical manifestations of his words, while Dex uses a biomechanical chair that would look right at home in a Nine Inch Nails music video. The AI Arora even summons a massive light construct of herself to battle against you (it’s not-so-subtly inspired by Blade Runner 2049 — there’s that Ryan Gosling inspiration again).
Every stage has some sort of gimmick that turns Dead as Disco on its head. One moment you could be fighting in a 3D subway tunnel and the next, you’re beating down enemies in a sidescrolling train car. A fight against generic thugs can quickly turn tense when you’re dropped into a foggy, narrow corridor. And just when you have your bearings, the ground quakes and lifts, and suddenly you’re defending the apex of an obsidian pyramid from dozens of black shadows climbing up to claim your life.
The Dex boss fight is drenched in biomechanical grime, crackling Tesla coils and swarming enemy shades. It plays out like a heavy metal music video.
At times, Dead as Disco almost feels like it’s moving too quickly, with one scenic vignette giving way to the next before every mook has even hit the floor. But the game is clearly committed to high-octane fun above all else, and if something doesn’t quite land, there’s always another backdrop, movie nod or boss phase just around the corner — just keep grooving to the beat, it insists. Don’t ever stop moving.
Dead as Disco’s story stages and challenge levels are themed around pop, metal, EDM, hip-hop and yes, even disco music. It feels like an ode to all music lovers as there’s something for everyone here. Plus, if you feel left out, the Infinite Disco mode lets you add your own music tracks to play around with. Yes, I added the Miku song. And yes, it’s absurdly entertaining to beat down street thugs to a vocaloid’s online theme song.
I expect to see some avant-garde gameplay footage online very soon. For folks who enjoy pushing rhythm games to their limits, Dead as Disco has the potential to become a forever game — one that doesn’t need a sequel or successor to stay engaging, especially if future updates flesh out the challenge list once the remaining boss fights are added.
Landing perfect blows against the enemy is the best way to stay safe on the streets and get a new high score.
Combat is tight, but how much meat is on the bone here?
Candidly, I was initially underwhelmed by Dead as Disco’s fighting moves and controls. As I punched, parried and dodged my way through the first of the game’s story levels, I struggled to find mechanical depth. The beat ’em up gameplay feels solid but simple — that is, until the skill trees start opening up.
As you beat down bosses, you start unlocking thematically appropriate abilities. A standout is the electric guitar strum that chains lightning between enemies, but other highlights include a rapper’s golden gauntlet for enhanced parries and a gnarly bass guitar that swings in a full 360-degree arc to knock enemies off their feet.
Using these abilities costs meter, a resource that builds as you knock out enemies. And all of your attacks feed into an ultimate ability, a flashy instant KO. Each attack powers a different move, and before long it becomes clear that Dead as Disco is designed to encourage rhythm in every facet of the fight.
As it’s still in Early Access, there are some kinks to iron out in the game’s combat. The game’s biggest sin is hiding a key ability — the drumstick grapple — deep in the skill tree, since it’s essential for quickly covering ground in the arenas. Once you realize you don’t need to run back and forth to maintain the flow of combat, the whole experience starts to pick up. Before long, you’ll have nearly a dozen moves to chain together, and it becomes hard not to start theorycrafting optimal ways to take down enemies and maximize your score.
Dead as Disco high score competitions are going to be fierce once the best players figure out how to optimize their perfect dodges and parries in each level.
And once you really start to master a level, you’ll find yourself timing attacks to its theme song — and it’s not just for show. Landing hits on the beat rewards you with a satisfying thwack, a higher score multiplier and increased damage, meaning any serious contender will need to balance speed and efficiency with carefully timed button presses.
Most importantly, Dead as Disco pulls off one of the hardest tricks in games: Whether you’re routinely pulling off no-hit runs or struggling to land a single perfectly timed parry, you’ll come away from each level feeling like the best player to pick up a controller. The game introduces its mechanics gradually, so Charlie Disco’s growing arsenal of martial arts moves never feels overwhelming.
No matter how much you get him scuffed up, Disco is always striking a pose, adjusting his pitch-black shades or running a hand through his silky hair. It takes real effort to make him look like a loser; the rule of cool is always in full effect, which makes this beat ’em up feel really special.
Dead As Disco’s early access build is available now on Steam for $25. A two-week launch discount is available, bringing the price down to $20. Console and mobile ports are planned, according to the developer, but there’s no timeline for their release. And no word yet on when the game will leave Early Access and boogie its way to a full 1.0 launch.
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