Press Kit
Download the full press kit, or reach out for a playable build and questions.
Fact Sheet
- Developer
- Bondigi Games (solo dev)
- Platform
- PC (Steam)
- Engine
- Unity (Photon Fusion 2 netcode)
- Genre
- Rhythm Arena Shooter
- Players
- Multiplayer with AI backfill
- Release
- TBA
- Price
- $7.99 ($4.99 launch discount)
- Steam
- Store Page
Description
BEATSHIFT ARENA is a rhythm-driven arena shooter where the soundtrack isn't a backdrop — it's the combat loop. Every shot, missile impact, and shockwave fires on the beat. Take damage and you grow larger: stronger, slower, louder. The arena itself shifts position, size, and rotation mid-match, so the map rewrites itself while you fight.
Fly through it with a full mobility toolkit — jump, grapple, wall run, ceiling run, and wall dash with directional snapping that lets you aim while you move. Custom volumetric fog and lighting keep the chaos readable: players are the brightest thing on screen, fog opens around every light, and you can spot the action from across the map. Stackable upgrades evolve mid-match, AI backfill keeps every lobby full on Easy through Expert, and a launch library of 50+ pre-mapped songs expands infinitely through first-class modding — Beat Sage can auto-generate a beat map from any song in seconds.
A new genre. Four years. One developer. Built from scratch — no asset flips, no plugins faking the rhythm engine.
Features
Beat-Synced Combat
Every weapon in the game fires on the beat. Missiles time their impacts to the music. The host picks a song and the beat map syncs automatically to every client in the background. On DualSense controllers, adaptive triggers pulse to the beat so you feel the rhythm in your fingers.
Player Scaling
Players grow larger as they take damage. Bigger means more powerful — increased weapon damage, larger blast radius, higher health. But you also become a bigger target. The game constantly balances aggression and vulnerability.
Dynamic Arena
The arena itself shifts position, size, and rotation mid-match. Players are forced into new zones, breaking camping and creating constant adaptation.
Fluid Mobility
A full mobility toolkit: jump, grapple, wall run, ceiling run, and dash off walls — with full momentum transfer between every transition and grapple-to-execute combos at the high end. Intuitive wall snapping reads the direction you're holding so you magnetize exactly where you want, leaving your aim free to track enemies while you fly around the arena. Fast, vertical, and deeply skill-expressive.
Full Mod Support
Custom beat maps, game modes, and arenas are all moddable. Uses the most popular community beat map format — the same one that powers the biggest rhythm game on the market — so thousands of existing maps work out of the box. Free tools like Beat Sage will auto-generate a beat map from any song file in seconds, and ChroMapper gives mappers full manual control. Drop songs into your user folder and they load dynamically in-game. Game modes are JSON configs with 30+ tunable parameters. Arena maps use Unity asset bundles — a dedicated map-maker SDK is nearly complete to make authoring new arenas easy, with Steam Workshop integration under consideration for the future.
AI Backfill
Never wait for players. AI fills empty slots so every match is full of action from the moment you start. The AI adapts to different game modes and arena layouts. Fully configurable, with built-in difficulty presets — Easy, Normal, Hard, and Expert — so you can tune the challenge to your group.
Stackable Upgrades
Seven distinct abilities with stacking progression — collect up to 8 of the same type to unlock stronger tiers with shorter cooldowns. Homing missiles with lock-on, defense orbs that orbit and intercept, shield shockwaves triggered by proximity, a dash with scaling boost duration, rockets, and a grapple swing. Upgrades spawn around the arena.
Music Selection
Ships with a curated library of 50+ songs spanning genres, all pre-mapped and ready to play. The host browses a playlist loaded dynamically from their user songs folder — cover art and 15-second previews included — picks a track, and the beat map syncs to every client. Add your own songs at any time and they load alongside the built-in library. The audio file transfers in the background and usually finishes in seconds, at which point everyone hears the full song locked to the beat. As a fallback, if a client hasn't finished downloading yet, the match still runs in perfect rhythm using the beat map alone — nobody gets held up waiting.
Beat-Synced Announcer
Countdown, eliminations, and team wipes all announced in sync with the music. The announcer is part of the rhythm.
Custom Sounds
First-class custom sound support built in. Drop in your own SFX — weapon fires, hits, eliminations, UI — and they sync to every client automatically, the same way beat maps do. Sounds auto-pitch to the song's key and time-stretch to match the tempo so every effect stays musical. Dedicated UIs for managing and assigning sound sets are on the way.
Luminous Fog & Lighting
A custom volumetric fog and lighting system built for readability at speed. Players are always the brightest things on screen, and the fog cuts out around every light source in the arena — so you can see where the action is from across the map and hunt down that last enemy-colored player instead of searching empty corridors. Combat reads clearly no matter how chaotic the neon gets.
Capture The Cubes
Territory-based attrition mode. Only one color can remain. Claim cubes by outnumbering enemies at each position. Every cube you hold drains opponents' respawn pool on the beat — the music drives the pressure. Teams bleed out when they lose map control. When you die and your team is out of respawns, you can betray your color and join another to keep playing. No timer, no ties — the match ends only when one color stands alone.
What Makes It Different
- Music isn't flavor — every shot, missile impact, and shockwave is locked to the beat. The soundtrack IS the combat loop.
- Players become the map — damage scales you up, so bigger means stronger AND a bigger target. The arena literally reshapes itself around who's winning.
- A full mobility toolkit — jump, grapple, wall run, ceiling run, wall dash — with directional snapping that lets you aim while you fly. No other arena shooter gives you this much movement freedom with this little hand tangle.
- Luminous fog and lighting engineered for readability. Players glow brighter than anything else, fog cuts out around every light source, and hunting the last enemy color never turns into a corridor-crawl.
- Capture The Cubes has no timer and no ties. When your team runs out of respawns, you can betray your color and join another — matches end only when one color is all that's left alive.
- AI backfill with Easy/Normal/Hard/Expert presets and fine-grained tuning — every match is full from the first second, calibrated to your group's skill.
- First-class modding from day one: popular community beat map format (Beat Sage auto-generates a map from any song in seconds), custom SFX that auto-pitch and time-stretch to the music, JSON game modes, and a nearly-complete arena SDK. All mods sync host→clients automatically.
- Stackable upgrades — abilities don't just unlock, they evolve mid-match. Collect more of the same type to reach stronger tiers.
- Built from scratch by one developer over four years — custom rhythm engine, no asset flips, no plugins faking the core systems.
Screenshots
Click to view full size. Right-click to download.
UI & Menus
Match setup, in-match flow, and post-match screens. Click to view full size.
Logos & Branding
Key Art (Full)
Main Capsule 920x430
Library Hero 1232x706
Small Capsule 462x174
Vertical Capsule 600x900
itch.io Cover 630x500Trailer
Monetization
$7.99 with a $4.99 launch discount. No microtransactions. No loot boxes. You buy the game, you get the game.
Minimum System Requirements
- OS
- Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Processor
- AMD Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4–3.5 GHz
- Memory
- 8 GB RAM
- Graphics
- 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6 GHz
- Storage
- 2 GB available space
- Note
- Runs on Steam Deck