Once upon a time, rhythm games were my jam. It was mainly the ones that required janky plastic peripherals to play, but I have a lot of love for the genre. Many an evening was spent strumming throughGuitar Hero 3’ssetlist or rocking out with friends on Rock Band.
While the era of plastic has sadly died, rhythm games have undergone something of a resurgence via the indie pipeline. Recent-ish titles likeCrypt of the Necrodancer,Metal Hellsinger,Fuserand Thumper have ranged from fantastic to respectable and Headbangers: Rhythm Royale is aiming to carve out its place in the space, with its own battle royale twist.
As I started my demo, I was first invited to create my character, landing on a weirdly long-necked pigeon (daddy pigeon crossbred with a mummy goose, so my head-canon goes). When it came to gear, I had to go with the Worms-inspired headgear from Team17’s most recognizable franchise.
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After creating my wee pigeon, I was then paired up with 29 other bots (because, presumably, everyone was too busyqueuing hours for Black Myth: Wukong) and thrown into my first series of rhythm-based games.
During my time, I was part of an orchestra, playing notes with a trombone and firing a slingshot at piano keys. The games were fun and pretty competitive, although sometimes extremely difficult, with the devs mentioning that they’re still tweaking the difficulty in some of the modes. A standard game consists of five rounds, with the lowest-scoring players dropping out round by round until only five are left standing for the finale.
In my first playthrough, I fell at the second hurdle. Still, in my second playthrough, after being matched to somebody playing the game on the Gamescom show floor, I managed to reach the final. However, I was unable to grab the gold medal because that specific game, which had me pressing buttons to guide a mine cart along a track,was incredibly tricky. A bot eventually usurped both me and my fellow human player.
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I played a bunch of Headbangers' different minigames, but I’m not sure I’d class them all as Rhythm-based. There was a game that had me identifying instruments based on their sounds that focused more on your musical knowledge, as well as the slingshot game which required you to memorize piano keys and shoot themthat was more about memory and controller aim, rather than your ability to press buttons to a beat.
My time with Headbangers: Rhythm Royale was fun, but it’s going to need some major momentum going into its launch. If it launches well, it’ll then need to give players a reason to keep coming back, and the fact that it’s a paid game (with a Battle Pass!) might make that a challenge. The Battle Royale market is saturated, and many games have failed to make a splash, disappearing just as quickly as they arrived. That being said, if it does find its feet early doors, there’s a good time to be had.
Whatever happens, I will at least be forever grateful that the game has helped me to remember how to spell Rhythm.
