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Metro Gravity is a metroidvania game released by mrkogamedev in 2025. You explore a surreal world themed heavily around music where your footsteps are always on beat, enemies attack in time with the music, and its combat is a rhythm game. But I don’t agree with this. It feels more like a music game than anything I’ve played in the rhythm genre.

To show this difference, I’ll start by looking at rhythm games first. You would likely have heard of one at some point; from Osu! to Guitar Hero. They may differ a lot in presentation, but they share the same core: perfection. Hit each note as they appear exactly in time with the beat. You miss a note; you lose your combo. Miss too many notes; you fail the chart (level). At a glance, this might seem very musical. To perform a song, you can’t make a mistake or it will sound bad.

But is this actually true? Perfection is hard enough to get once for a recording, and in a performance that just isn’t consistently possible. Rather than perfection, a performer aims for extremely good. And this means mistakes are usually minor and aren’t all that noticeable. So, then what? How can a game be musical?

This is where the second part of a performance comes in: they are usually done in a group. Playing with others adds a layer to a performance which acts like a conversation through music. You have the language of the song and converse between this base in different ways. Different groups will have different conversations, solos and improvisation reflect moods on that day, and each person has their own way of showing their creativity. A music game would reflect this by giving the possibility to put yourself in the song rather than restricting you purely to the chart.

But Metro Gravity calls itself a rhythm game and seems that way initially. When fighting a boss, their attacks are telegraphed with a shrinking circle and information on whether to block or dodge which acts like a chart in a rhythm game. Miss a block; take damage. Take too much damage; you die. The music aspect comes in when we look at attacking. You don’t need to attack to beat the boss, just finish their song, but it is encouraged. Successfully blocking an attack builds a score multiplier, however, you only get points for attacking. Windows to attack aren’t telegraphed like blocking is, instead requiring you to slip them in between defending by feeling the song. This puts you in conversation with both the song and the boss much like a performance does.

Metro Gravity takes the base of the rhythm genre and introduces freedom to express yourself in the constraints of the chart. The conversation with the game and its bosses this puts you in strengthens the connection you have with it and increases the engagement of the combat. This gives the game a feeling of playing music that I haven’t felt in a game before and I hope more games take this approach to rhythm games.