Beat Saber Blends Music/Rhythm Action With Star Wars-Style Lightsabers – And It’s Glorious

Music/rhythm games usually have some kind of hook to them to keep players coming back for more, whether it's the sheer relentlessness of Thumper or the awesome rock rhythms of Harmonix's Rock Band series. But the forthcoming Beat Saber from Hyperbolic Magnetism promises to do something for the genre that hasn't been done before in the world of virtual reality – it lets you go nuts with lightsaber-style weaponry.

The game, which is set to come out for Vive, Oculus and PlayStation VR sometime this year, has one simple goal – slash whatever comes your way to the tune of a song, following the commands that appear on tiles. As you can see from the gameplay clip above, this starts out pretty easy at first, but soon, all sorts of tiles start piling up, and you'll need to react quickly in order to get them all and successfully complete the stage.

The game relies on motion-based gameplay, as it puts a lightsaber weapon in each hand and forces you to correspond with each tile that comes down the track. These can point in any given direction, and there are some that actually require you to use a particular weapon in order to cut it down. The red tiles match the red saber, while the blue tiles match the blue one. Simple, yet effective.

We've only seen a small dose of gameplay from the video above, so the final game, whenever it arrives this year, is likely to offer a variety of tunes that you can hack and slash your way through. Hyperbolic Magnetism hasn't indicated just how many songs will be available, or if we can expect any sort of licensed tracks like some music/rhythm games have gotten in the past. Whatever the case, though, Beat Saber promises to be quite a workout.

It also hasn't been priced yet, but considering it's going for more of an indie vibe, it probably won't run you any more than $20 at best, depending on what its final content looks like. We'll definitely keep an eye on this one as it continues on in development – because double lightsabers, dang it.