Rift of the NecroDancer has some big shoes to fill, as its predecessor Crypt of the NecroDancer made waves for its memorable blend of roguelike dungeon crawling and head-nodding rhythm game mechanics. As a roguelike indie game, Crypt of the NecroDancer was eminently replayable, encouraging players to run and re-run its musical dungeons to unlock new characters, grow stronger, and grasp the depth of its surprisingly tactical combat. Rift of the NecroDancer might not be a roguelike dungeon crawler like its forebearer, but it’s got a few tricks up its sleeve to keep rhythm gamers occupied for countless hours.
In an interview with Game Rant, Rift of the NecroDancer game design director Aaron Gordon spoke about how Brace Yourself Games’ second entry in the franchise has set the game up to be endlessly replayable thanks to multiple game modes that drastically alter how players will approach its tracks. While rhythm games like Guitar Hero found replayability in challenging players to perfect their scores by memorizing and mastering each song, Rift of the NecroDancer’s approach goes beyond score-chasing to offer players new challenges every time they tackle a track.
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Every Rhythm Game Should Steal Rift of the NecroDancer’s Remix Mode
One way Rift of the NecroDancer found a way to be an incredibly replayable game was through its Remix Mode. It’s a simple enough premise but one that has been perplexingly absent throughout much of the rhythm game genre. Remix Mode, as the name implies, shuffles the placement and population of the track’s monsters so that each playthrough brings fresh challenges. Gordon explains how the team ensured that while this mode delivers infinite possibilities for the game’s charts, it won’t feel random or out of place:
“Remix Mode takes our existing charts and remixes the monsters and their placements to give the player a brand new chart to play each time. It’ll still feel like you’re playing to the music, so it won’t feel random. For example, whereas before, there may have been one slime on the left and one on the right, now you might hit a skull on the left, which bursts into two skeletons. Then it might turn into a two-hit combo to hit both left and right next.
You can’t just memorize and practice the track—it’s leveraging much more of your understanding of how the Rift mechanics work and how the monsters interact with each other. If a zombie is coming down the track, you’ll need to quickly process that it’s going to hit a slime and end up on the right, when it would normally end up on the left. You need to think and react quickly.”
Due to how Rift of the NecroDancer‘s monsters behave, all it takes is replacing a section normally occupied by one-shot slimes with a series of side-stepping bats to change the challenge presented to the player without altering the all-important musicality and feel of the gameplay. Monsters will still follow the instruments, melodies, and percussion, but each monster’s unique characteristics will change how players respond to what they see on the track.
Rift of the NecroDancer’s Daily Challenge Mode Encourages Competition
Rift of the NecroDancer is also introducing a mode that has yet to be seen in the rhythm game genre at large. Its Daily Challenge Mode presents players with a randomized track—owing to its Remix Mode concept—and just a single shot to achieve a high score. Gordon says that this feature is particularly exciting for the Brace Yourself Games team, and has led to friendly rivalries forming among the developers:
“Daily Challenge Mode is really exciting for us—it’s something we haven’t seen in a rhythm game before. Remix Mode unlocks our ability to do this. We have a custom seed shared for everybody, and you get to pick your difficulty: easy, medium, hard, or impossible mode. You get one chance to play the track—no retries, no practice mode. See how high you can get on the leaderboard and then return the next day to do it again.
It’s been really exciting already because as soon as the feature came online, we started playing it on the dev team, and we’ve got some fierce rivalries going on. It’s been fun trying to outdo each other every day.”
Thanks to a novel core concept, a soundtrack composed by legends like DannyB, and game modes that promote replayability and competition, Rift of the NecroDancer is shaping up to be one of the year’s must-play titles for rhythm gamers. Given the inhuman talent dedicated rhythm gamers possess, it likely won’t be long after its February 5 release when the developers’ high scores are shattered on the leaderboards.
Rift of the NecroDancer
The NecroDancer’s back in an all-new rhythm game! Dragged into a strange new world, Cadence must engage in musical combat with monsters pouring through the Rift! Each monster has unique behaviors—like bats that shift lanes when attacked—and tougher foes take multiple hits to dispatch. Learn the pattern of each new fretful fiend to keep the music flowing!
Showstopping Music: Brand new soundtrack with 30+ Rhythm Rift tracks by Danny Baranowsky, Jules Conroy, Alex Moukala, Josie Brechner, Sam Webster, and Nick Nausbaum with more on the way!
Difficulty that Scales with You: Four intensity levels for each Rhythm Rift – EASY, MEDIUM, HARD, and IMPOSSIBLE.
Race to the Top: Climb your way to the top of global leaderboards!
Custom Music: Create your own custom beat maps with the actual developer tools our designers use!
Endless Replayability: Once you’ve conquered our hand-crafted levels, challenge your sight-reading with Remix Mode.
Remix Mode throws a fresh beatmap your way every playthrough while retaining the original level’s rhythmic design.
Remix mode also makes DAILY CHALLENGES possible, by changing up the circumstances for each song. Play the same random seed as every other player that day and see how you rank on global leaderboards!
Go head to head against five fearsome foes in rhythm-based boss battles!
Immerse yourself in Cadence and friends’ modern misadventures through five quirky, slice-of-life rhythm minigames. Take a boppin’ yoga class, help a friend with a part-time job, and more!
- Released
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February 5, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Brace Yourself Games, Tic Toc Games
- ESRB
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E for Everyone