ROBOBEAT

ROBOBEAT is a rogue-like shooter that ties every gunfight to a beat, built by solo developer Simon Fredholm and published by Kwalee. You play Ace, a bounty hunter chasing down a robotic showman named Frazzer through a mansion full of neon-lit combat rooms, and the whole appeal rests on one idea: shoot on rhythm and you hit harder. It sounds like a gimmick until you’re mid-slide, timing a shot to a snare hit, and realizing the game actually wants you to move like a dancer with a gun.

How it plays

Each run sends you through procedurally generated levels where combat and movement are stitched together by music. You wall-run, slide, double jump, and grapple between platforms while an arsenal of guns and melee weapons lets you tear through enemies, and landing your shots in sync with the track’s beat boosts damage and cuts down cooldowns. Charged shots, damage multipliers, and armor-piercing rounds give you more to juggle as runs get harder, and modifications layer on top to nudge your build in different directions. The rogue-like structure means weapons, songs, and utilities unlock as you push further into the mansion, so no two runs play out quite the same. There’s also a custom music feature that lets you drop in your own tracks and have the game generate beats around them, which is a genuinely unusual way to let players reshape the core loop instead of just picking a difficulty slider.

Who it’s for

This is a great fit if you like rhythm games but wish they had guns, or if you’re the type who replays rogue-lites for the moment-to-moment feel rather than just the loot chase. Fans of fast, physical shooters that reward clean movement will find a lot to like here too, since the platforming and gunplay are treated as one system rather than separate chores. If you find rhythm mechanics stressful or you’d rather play a shooter at your own pace without a metronome nudging your trigger finger, this one’s going to fight you more than it entertains you. It also leans into rogue-like repetition, so if permadeath runs wear you down instead of pulling you back in, temper your expectations.

Is it worth grabbing?

For anyone curious about rhythm-action hybrids, this is an easy one to add to your library since it’s a fairly specific niche done with real craft, not a generic shooter with a beat slapped on top. The custom music support alone makes it worth keeping around, since you can revisit it later with a totally different playlist and get a noticeably different run out of it. If you’ve bounced off other rogue-lites because the combat felt disconnected from everything else going on, ROBOBEAT’s whole pitch is that connection, and that’s worth experiencing firsthand rather than taking someone else’s word for it.

Quick facts

Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie. Developer: Simon Fredholm. Publisher: Kwalee. Platform: PC. Release date: May 14, 2024.