Unbeatable Screenshot
Image: D-CELL GAMES

You might have noticed there's a LOT of games on Steam, and so, so many genres. Some we don't even have named for yet! So, Steam Hype is here to help. Want to know where to start with a popular genre, or just pad out your wishlist for the next big sale? We've got curated lists right here, starting with entry-level picks to the most demanding games for true genre sickos.

Today, we're diving into rhythm games. A genre anyone can jump into if you can tap a button to the beat, but with an enormous skill ceiling. Here's a roundup of some of the best games around, ranging from single-button games to one that'll have you slamming your entire keyboard.

Just be aware that complexity is not the same as difficulty. Some one-button challenges can be brutal, while there's some 7+ button rhythm games which can be positively chill. Almost everything here has its own difficulty scale, usually ranging all the way from beginner to music-synced monster, so don't be afraid to start more complex if you feel you've got the dexterity for it.

One-button basics

Do you have at least one extremity capable of hitting a button? You're halfway there! Do you have any sense of rhythm? Well... you can work on that part. At the most basic level of rhythm games, you've got one-button stuff. Just listen to the music, internalize which count you're meant to be pressing the button on, and then just vibe.

Probably the most accessible of these on Steam is Bits & Bops, inspired by Nintendo's classic Rhythm Heaven series. Cute call-and-response challenges through an assortment of minigames, each set of four culminating in a longer, tougher 'remix' that combines several mechanics. It also boasts a library of user-made Workshop tracks.

Slightly more demanding is Rhythm Doctor. Similar in design but it relishes in messing with the visuals or having you deal with dizzying polyrhythms. It does a shocking amount of weird and cool stuff within that one-button format, and has mountains of community-made stages.

Probably most challenging of the one-button games is A Dance of Fire and Ice, an earlier game by the Rhythm Doctor devs which gives little room for error as you tap to the beat as a pair of orbiting... err.. orbs dance across a maze of tiles representing the music. Still one button, but you'll need to both internalize the beat and read the screen so you can prepare for tempo changes or other obstacles. Tons of user-made stages for this one, too.

Multiple inputs

Getting a little more complicated, but not by much. Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival, Muse Dash and Unbeatable all use simple two-button controls, usually for high/low notes respectively. Sometimes you need to hit both at the same time, or rapidly tap as fast as you can for bonus points, but you know the drill.

What separates these games is theme. Taiko no Tatsujin (a port of a classic arcade drumming game) is the most kid-friendly here. Muse Dash is candy-colored but unrepentantly horny, and Unbeatable is more story-driven, with the rhythm gameplay providing (soul-achingly cool) punctuation to the wandering and chatting, outside of a (very fleshed out) arcade mode. All three of them are all about paid DLC over user-made stuff, too.

Slightly more complex is Rift of the NecroDancer. An unusual three-button game. It might look simple, but this one has teeth, as each note is represented by a monster with unusual behaviors. Some monsters might need to be hit twice, others will switch lane left or right on arrival. Others will split in two. it's all more mentally demanding than you'd first expect.

But most interesting here are Beatblock and Hyperbeat, which released almost alongside each other, both featuring an analogue-and-button layout (either mouse or gamepad) where you hold the stick towards the notes, and tap only on the (visually indicated) hard beat. While these two play similarly, they couldn't be more different in visuals, with Beatblock being a cute monochrome arcade game (with tons of user-made tracks too), while Hyperbeat is a stylish wireframe 3D world with a stronger story focus. Both rock, though.

Classic anthems

And here we are in the domain of genre mainstays, starting with four-button standbys and beyond. 4-8 button layouts are the standard for many rhythm games, great on just about any controller but weirdly great on a good mechanical keyboard.

One of the most enduring rhythm games around is DJMax Respect V. The latest in a long-running series which has been around since 2004, with support for between 4 to 8-button play and hundreds of tracks across all possible genres, plenty of play-modes and fiercely competitive online ranking, this is a go-to for a reason. No user tracks here, though, and DJMax can potentially be very expensive. At full price, close to $800 with all DLC. But the game (and all but the most recent DLC) goes on steep discount frequently.

A little quirkier, there's Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+ - originally a hit on the Vita. It's all Vocaloids, all the time here, so if robo-voiced synth J-Pop is your thing, you're feasting. Unusual gameplay here designed for gamepads. Primarily four-button but expect to use both D-pad and the face buttons occasionally. Impressive presentation, with each track either looking like a full music video or a pop idol stage production.

But if Steam sales have cleared out your gaming budget, perhaps consider Vivid/Stasis. Despite being a massive 4-button game with hundreds of tracks (each with multiple difficulty modes), and a visual novel, and an ARG-style puzzle game, and a Yume Nikki-like exploration game plus several other genres... Vivid/Stasis is completely free. You've no excuse to not at least try it. Go on.

Rhythm hell

Bullet hell shmups and rhythm games - two great, classic arcade flavors that go surprisingly well together. Here's a few choice picks where the notes are trying to hit you.

Enduringly popular, Just Shapes & Beats isn't a huge game, but it's a very finely tuned adventure in dodging your way through beautifully choreographed music-video-like obstacle courses. Playing as a little blue square, you're simply trying to not get hit by any of the solid red obstacles. Simple, but more demanding than it sounds. As great to watch as play.

Picking up where Just Shapes & Beats left off, Afterbeat (formerly Project Arrhythmia) is very much more of the same, plus with a powerful in-game editor to create your own stages and share them on the Steam Workshop. The sky's the limit here, as you can see in this spectacular custom stage.

But if it's real bullet-dodging than you want, how about a mash-up with one of the most enduring shmup franchises ever? Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost has a mouthful of a title, and is a mix of challenging 6-button classic rhythm action and hybrid shmup stages where you have to play up to a four-button note chart all while dodging bullet patterns.

But even that one pulls its punches a little on the bullet-dodging front. For pure arcade sickos (with an even more demanding sequel designed for mobile), Noisz is a full-fat bullet hell shmup that just happens to be set to the beat. Tap out your attacks to the rhythm and shield your way through light-colored bullets as you dance through a deadly laser lightshow. Tough, but rewarding.

Musical mashups

Even more interesting hybrids abound. Turns out that you can sync almost any game to the beat to make it cooler.

Like a psychedelic, trippy reimagining of Undertale, Everhood (and its slightly more experimental sequel) is an RPG adventure through a surreal world populated by weirdos and monsters, with combat handled via an inverted rhythm game. Enemies blast you with notes from above and you've got to hop from lane to lane to dodge them until they tire themselves out.

Once must-haves on the venerable PlayStation Portable, Patapon 1 + 2 Replay is like nothing else. Another RPG-lite hybrid where you lead a tribe of little warriors across a hostile world, telling them to attack, defend or march with drum-beat instructions. Still in early access, spiritual successor Ratatan is shaping up well, too.

But no segment on rhythm hybrids would be complete without Crypt of the NecroDancer. A challenging turn-based roguelike dungeon crawler where everything moves to the beat. You've got to keep moving to the music while dodging attacks and managing your loot. Don't skip on the excellent expansions, either, and the thousands of mods on the Steam Workshop.

Beatdown on the beat

Continuing our tangent into genre fusions, here's a handful of great action games synched to the beat. Not pure rhythm games, but definitely close neighbors that get invited to all the cool house parties.

Still in early access but extremely promising already is Dead as Disco, which takes the stylish, choreographed fighting of the Batman: Arkham series and syncs it all to the beat. Every punch, kick, parry or block becomes part of the soundtrack. Featuring a great story mode with some incredibly stylish setpieces, but also support to play arcade mode with your own music.

In a similar vein, Hi-Fi Rush is an excellent cartoony Devil May Cry-like action game where swinging and dodging on the beat boosts your damage done and your score. While you can just mash your way to victory here, the more you're feeling the groove, the better. All the boss fights are to classic licensed tracks, but the optional 'stream-safe' soundtrack is no slouch either.

And lastly, Metal: Hellsinger transplants the hybrid format into a high-speed FPS. Shoot, dodge and switch weapons to the beat to keep up your combo, do more damage and score higher, all accompanied by a bespoke soundtrack from some legendary heavy metal artists that grows louder and more grandiose as you fight better. There's also a VR version, if that's your jam.

Virtual Rhythm

It's also worth mentioning that there's a lot of great rhythm games available for the VR headset crowd, and they burn a lot of calories. The most popular by far is Beat Saber. Armed with a pair of glowstick lightsabers, you slice through colored blocks to the beat, and occasionally dance around oncoming obstacles.

Pistol Whip has you blasting bad guys to the beat as you float through a music-synced series of themed world, occasionally smacking enemies with your gun (hence the title) on the big beat-drops, and constantly ducking, weaving and dancing around oncoming slow-mo bullets. You WILL break a sweat playing this.

Both games have heaps of user-made content, although while it's a built-in feature of Pistol Whip, Beat Saber will need some tinkering to get access to community creations. Worth the effort, though - there's some spectacular stuff that puts every official stage to shame.

One for the freaks

And lastly, a game by rhythm game freaks, for rhythm game freaks. PROJEKT GODHAND bills itself as the "ULTIMATE TOOL ASSISTED BULLSHITTING KEYBOARD DESTRUCTION RHYTHM GAME". What this means is that yes, this is an 8-button rhythm game with a love of high-BPM gabber nonsense for music.

But it doesn't track which keys you're hitting, just which side of your keyboard, so you're free to just slam your hands frantically across the buttons to the beat. And smashing when there's no notes increases your score multiplier (at the cost of increasing the precision of timing needed), meaning that unhinged play is rewarded further. Don't think that just because it's silly and encourages idiot flailing means that it's easy, though. It just means the game doesn't have to play by anyone's rules anymore.

And just one more...

It would be remiss of me to do a rhythm game roundup without at least mentioning Osu! The freeware, community-run Swiss army knife of rhythm games. It's not on Steam, but with a little wrangling you can get it running on Steam Deck. That's possibly the best place for it, as the primary mode for the game is based on cult Nintendo DS hit Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, which you played by tapping the notes either with your fingers or stylus. Perfect for the Deck's big, touch-sensitive screen.

But that's just the tip of the Osu! iceberg. This game has play-modes based on almost every major rhythm game around. It's Taiko Drum Master, it's DJMax, and with there's mods to make it so much more, all with a vast library of tens of thousands of user-made tracks to play.

And there you have everything you ever wanted to know about getting into rhythm games, but were too afraid to ask. Or at least, we think so. Let us known in the comments what you think of our picks, or if there's any real must-haves on Steam that we missed.