Dead as Disco: How Long to Beat Early Access and What’s Coming Next
Dead as Disco's current early access build is shorter than you might expect, but you can still wring a lot of hours out of it if you know what to pursue.
Nearly a full year after the original demo launched, the game finally arrived in early access. The initial versions simply let you fight to a few pre-set tracks or upload your own, but this release introduces the start of a proper single-player campaign. You control Charlie Disco, battling former bandmates called Idols to reunite them and piece together the mystery of how you died. I want to lay out exactly how much time you need to clear the current story and what to expect from the upcoming update schedule.
The Core Story Missions
The main draw right now is the first chunk of the story mode. You currently have four Idols to track down. Each one of these targets features a dedicated stage that ends in a boss battle.
These boss encounters are solid, but they are relatively brief. Each fight takes around 20 minutes or so to beat. If you just want to run through these main stages and see the credits roll on the current build, you will get about two hours out of the game. Keep in mind that the game currently lacks any achievement support. That feature will not arrive until the eventual 1.0 version.
Infinite Disco Challenges
Those story missions are just a small piece of the puzzle. Infinite Disco received a major update to include over 30 challenge maps. These maps force you to fight to a certain song with specific conditions attached.
Tackling all of these challenges easily adds another four or five hours to your run. You also still have the ability to import your own songs into this mode, which provides an endless way to play if you enjoy the core combat.
The Encore Bar Economy
The real time investment kicks in once you start engaging with the hub world. Defeating an Idol sends them to the Encore Bar. You can chat with them to advance their storylines, but they require specific items found by replaying levels or completing challenges.
Rebuilding the bar and outfitting Charlie requires a currency called Fans. You earn Fans by completing levels. You then spend those Fans to purchase trinkets, bar repairs, new outfits, and power-ups from Charlie's skill tree. If you aim to buy all the skills, unlock the outfits, and find every collectible, you are looking at well over 15 hours of gameplay.
The Roadmap to Version 1.0
The developers have mapped out their update schedule leading all the way to a full release. I organized the official plans below so you can see exactly when new features will drop.
