Why Headbangers: Rhythm Royale could be the next Fall Guys

Announced as part of the Future Games Show in June earlier this year, Headbangers is a musical battle royale game from Glee-Cheese Studio, where pigeons compete in Mario Party-like mini-games with music to come out on top.

It's a delightful premise, one that we were eager to get our hands on at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany.

Within minutes, we were enamoured by the bizarre scenarios these gangly pigeons were put in.

For one, Glottissmo has the player trying to replicate a pigeon Pavarotti by pressing the correct notes in order, only for the buttons to disappear the further the game goes on.

The best part is that every time a different octave is hit, the pigeon will stretch its neck up or down in quick succession, providing some very humorous moments that do well to distract you from the task at hand.

In some ways, the noises and animated motions of the pigeons are reminiscent of the Minions, so it's clear how this "memeable" appeal would do well on social media like X and streaming sites like Twitch, even if that's not the core audience.

"It's mainly for people who want to have a good time with funny music and song-based mini-games," Headbangers game designer and co-composer Charles Bardin tells RadioTimes.com.

"It's something you can pick up for either a short or long amount of time with either friends online or other players around the globe."

Delightfully simple

Clearly taking inspiration from the success of Fall Guys, every round of Headbangers features four mini-games that will whittle down the 30-player group to an overall winner come the end.

We spent a good 30 minutes at the indie booth, playing two rounds - suggesting games will take approximately 15 minutes in total. It's fair to say it's pretty addictive, as we eventually went back for more at the Xbox booth, finding it to be a highlight of the entire show.

Faster than Sound is another mini-game where two pigeons stand outside a Western saloon ready to draw pistols at dawn. The catch here? Players must react to a specific sound quicker than opponents, such as a telephone, frying pan or ray gun.

It's delightfully simple, but requires intense concentration - with numerous different sounds played in the build-up to the correct one. We felt ourselves having to close our eyes in the middle of a bustling show floor to really get the edge over our feathered foe.

Everybody knows pigeons

Why pigeons, though? Of all the different species found in the animal kingdom, it's not exactly a popular choice.

"So, there’s a fun fact about that," Bardin explains. "We were searching for characters and I remember my wife telling me, 'When you listen to funky music, you always move your head like a pigeon.'

"We talked about it with our artistic director, and we were like, 'A pigeon is such a good idea. Everyone in the world knows [about] pigeons.' At that moment, everyone thought, 'Hey, what are pigeons listening to when they move their head like that?' This is where the idea came from. And this is the one we kept because we loved it."

Anyone looking to dress their pigeon up in a sombrero or dinosaur mask is in luck, as customisation will factor in quite heavily. Players will be able to collect Crumbs (in-game currency) to purchase designs - with microtransactions not set to be included.

Instead, Glee-Cheese Studio has opted to launch the game this Halloween as a premium product, following in the footsteps of Fall Guys - which did the same originally, before moving to a free-to-play model just under two years on.

"We might have specific DLCs to buy or to unlock things, but everything else is unlockable by playing the game, completing challenges and progressing through the levels," says Bardin.

Premium product

Considering Fall Guys sold 10 million copies as a full release, only to then jump substantially to upwards of 50 million players when switched to free-to-play, it makes sense why publisher Team17 is ushering the French studio to this line of thinking.

Headbangers has a slight advantage over Fall Guys, too, being playable on all consoles (PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo) and PC come day one.

While being able to dress up a pigeon as Elvis has its, uh-huh, quirks, what will ultimately see Headbangers live or die is the quality of its mini-games coupled with its word of mouth.

So, let us start the conversation by saying these mini-games are easy to pick up, frightfully hard to put down and, most importantly, fantastically fun.

Of the eight or so we played, our favourite of the bunch has to go to Guilty. Set in an auditorium, a police line-up of our flappy friends dressed in outfits from different musical genres are brought in, leaving two FBI pigeons to decipher which one made the song heard through the pair's laptop. It's fast, frenetic and deceptively difficult the more it goes on.

Regardless, whether it be nailing the precision of pigeon aerobics, competing in an underground rap battle or taking part in rhythmic whack-a-mole, Headbangers definitely has the potential to hit big with audiences.

Headbangers: Rhythm Royale is scheduled to launch across PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 31st October 2023.

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