Dead as Disco is a Bloody and Brilliant Mosh Pit

Revenge is a dish best served at 120 beats per minute. Most rhythm games have you tapping to cute anime songs or slicing shiny boxes. That’s not the case with this one. Dead as Disco has you smashing a guitar over your old lead singer’s head to a heavy bassline. You play a literal dead guy on a revenge tour. As the developers continue working, this title could easily become the crazy, violent rhythm brawler the genre has been waiting for.

This preview would not have been possible without the wonderful people at Pirate PR & Brain Jar Games/Dead As Disco!

Beat ‘Em Up like no other

The Bloody Dance Floor

Dead as Disco is a brawler where button-mashing gets you killed. It’s as simple as that. Oh, and also having rhythm is a must. You have to land every punch, dodge, and takedown right on the beat. They call it “Beat Kune Do.” It does sound incredibly cheesy, but it actually works like a charm.

You play as Charlie Disco. Your old bandmates sold out, changed their name to the Idols, and threw a concert honoring your death. Now you’re fighting your way through it. You do a run, unlock some silly neon pants, upgrade your Dive Bar, and go back out to get beat up again. The game pushes back hard. Miss a beat, drop your combo, and you take a bat to the ribs. But when you find the groove and land a heavy attack right on a bass drop? It feels amazing. Plus, you can import your own MP3s. Beating a boss to your own weird playlist is an unforgetable trip. Once you go over the game as it was intended by the devs, we strongly recommend you replay it using your own tunes.

Brain Jar Games

Smashing together a rhythm game with 3D brawler while promising huge custom content sounds like classic “mission impossible.” feat. Yet, Brain Jar Games has looked at that challenge and told Tom Cruise to hold the beer.

The remote team of veterans from BioWare, Super Evil Megacorp, and Trion Worlds is actually doing it. They aren’t a massive corporate studio anymore. That’s why this first game feels so raw and bold. They plan to stay in Early Access for a year to add co-op, bosses, and fix bugs. Letting players edit music videos and make custom tracks is a huge promise. If they pull it off without the game breaking, it’s a guaranteed cult classic. If they fail? Well, then it’s just another indie that tried to do too much.

Broken Beats & Blinding Lights

The fighting is solid, but everything around can be a bit messy right now.

The flashes for perfect attacks are way too big. It’s like staring at a strobe light. Brain Jar is already shrinking them, which is a massive relief. The “Infinite Disco” mode is currently broken. If you swap arenas, the game basically crashes. Just avoid it for the time being (that’s also worked on). And the big Custom Song Editor can sometimes be a tad buggy. Mess with a song’s start time, and your custom beats break. Open and close it, and it copies your beat markers until the track is ruined. You can play it, but expect some rough spots.

Fighting to the beat

The game is in Early Access. It’s messy and loud. It’s broken in a few spots. But the core game is great. Dead as Disco has a real pulse, which is more than you can say for most polished action games dropping these days. A dead drummer crashing his own tribute concert to beat up his sellout bandmates is a killer pitch for a pure, campy revenge story. When that narrative wraps around combat where the rhythm and violence actually sync up, it feels like magic. Sure, the neon art style is fantastic, even if the blinding explosion effects currently make it ridiculously hard to see who is punching you. The soundtrack hits hard, though. Between the original bangers, licensed tracks, and the wild ability to chart your own MP3s, the audio carries the entire experience. This is a bruising brawler. Give it a few more months in the Early Access oven to cure its technical hangovers, and Brain Jar might just pull off the gig of a lifetime.

ID Card

• Developer: Brain Jar Games, Inc.
• Publisher: Brain Jar Games, Inc.
• Platforms: PC (PS5 planned)
• Release Date: Early Access on May 5, 2026 (1.0 expected ~1 year later)
• Genre: Rhythm Beat ‘Em Up