The Midsummer Update Takes the Stage!

You kept asking what was next between runs. Our answer, pack your bags, we are heading to the beach. This is the Midsummer Update, the second stop on the Summer Flames Tour, and it is loaded! Dive into a new song, four new arenas, four new outfits, new dance moves, new memorabilia, a fresh batch of Challenges, a brand new enemy, and a whole rack of tools, tuning, fixes built straight from your reports and feedback, and one of your most requested features: Auto BPM detection. Update 1 got the crowd moving. This one turns up the heat. And true to Early Access, a good chunk of what is below - the new difficulty mode, the ability changes - is us experimenting out loud so your feedback can shape where it lands. Treat it as a soundcheck, not the final mix, and tell us how it feels. We are listening. Now on with the show!

A new remix of Maniac, "Maniac (Skate Version)," takes the stage: it is in Free Play and headlines its own new Challenge. Four new Challenges join the rotation featuring everything below: Boogie Beach Bash, Maniac (Skate), Superior Sequencing, and Dance Party. Get in there and mix it up.

Four new arenas are up for unlock: Boogie Beach 1, Boogie Beach 2, Lunar Tides 1, and Lunar Tides 2. Yes, you can kick the beach ball around. Yes, you can flatten the sandcastles. We checked.

Four new full outfits are available for unlock: D.E.D Original, Summer Flames, Vacay Vibes, and Vice Wave, each with head, glasses, clothes, and drumsticks. A goal here is to start opening up more mix-and-match room, so build the look that is yours.

Break out your best beachwear with new Memorabilia to unlock: Boogie Board, Beach Ball, Inflatable Flamingo Tube, and the Maniac (Skate) Record.

Tear up the sand with new Dance Moves: Thirsty Thrust, Stylish Shuffle, Smokin' Wave, and Moonwalk.

Enter the Elite Stardolls. These new mobs roll in with Super Armor and fire two shots back to back, so keep your head on a swivel. You will meet them in the Superior Sequencing Challenge, and yes you can spawn them in Custom Challenges. Let's see what you can do with them.

Amped up and ready for more action? Intense Mode is now available on every story level. Here's what you can expect…

• You must clear Amped mode to unlock Intense.
• Enemy damage is doubled.
• Perfect windows are reduced by 50%.
• Healing hearts are removed from levels.
• Moshers, Security Guards, Stardoll Snipers, and Bouncers get Super Armor.
• No checkpoints. Good luck

Now a public service announcement: because we are in Early Access, we are trying out a bunch of ways to bring difficulty into the game, and we want your feedback to shape the form it ultimately takes. This is a work in progress, and it's not the ceiling on difficulty either.

You want more reasons to play, chase those scores, and soar to new heights? Achievements are now available with this update.

• Steam and EGS now both have Achievements.
• Past play history counts towards achievements, and will unlock next time you continue your game.

Just like intense mode, this is not the final Achievement list. We're starting with the basics to get the system running. Since we are in Early Access, these first ones are simple targeting content that is unlikely to change. Expect to see more challenging achievements come online with future updates.

Our first pass at automatic BPM / offset detection is in the game, and we hope you're as stoked as we are!

• To use it, just hit the "Auto Detect" button next to Tempo, and let it do its thing.
• My Music screen got a UX pass: clearer input field backgrounds, toned-down warning text, and more consistent buttons.
• Updated file pickers, clearing up edge cases when adding songs with My Music.
• Added a warning before using the new file picker for streamers so they don't show anything they don't intend to.

Please flag any issues with this new feature in Discord.

For everyone bending Custom Challenges into beautiful nonsense, we brought more toys for you to play with!

• Enabled Leaderboards for Custom Challenges.
• New tunable mod: Perfect Window Timing (Multiplier) - dial how easy or hard it is to land Perfect timing.
• New tunable mod: Takedown Token Regen Duration (Multiplier) - dial how quickly you earn Takedown Tokens.
• You can now apply Super Armor to enemies.
• Sunken Stans and Sunken Moshers can now be spawned.
• Tunable mods only apply when they differ from their default value, with added UI clarity for when a mod is active.
• Fixed an issue where the maintain-spawn-count option sometimes thinned out over time.

Challenge playlists have also gotten a few updates

• The transition between songs should feel more seamless • Title and mods display has moved to the left side of the screen • Player Mods can be viewed on the pause screen for any Challenge running active mods.

Every patch we watch how you actually play and adjust abilities to match. The goals: keep abilities impactful without being overpowered, and make sure each one owns its niche. There is still work to do to make them feel music-matched (that's a focus for the future) and we'll be closely monitoring their performance. Expect more changes as we go and keep the feedback coming.

• Arora skill tree - Singularity is now stronger but riskier to use:

• Will no longer set enemies airborne and causes generally smaller hit reactions.

• Removed attack that fired on release.

• No more invulnerability on release.

• Pull radius increased slightly.

• Now applies pull to enemies that are air-juggled and knocked down.

• Dex skill tree - Multi-tap is now unlocked by it's upgrade, Ride the Lightning.
• Hemlock skill tree - Slightly reduced damage on Bass Invader. Additionally certain frames of Bass Invader no longer grant Invulnerability, and grant Uninterruptable instead.
• Windmill now pulls the target toward Charlie on hit.
• Backup Sticks (charged Drumstick Toss) now use a knock-up hit react.
• Drumstick Toss confers a slightly more severe hit reaction.
• Super Armor is now a purple-ish/white color in the UI and VFX. This is because the previous yellow was getting confused with the yellow color for counters
• 5-Star Scores updated for Sprint and Slide Real Smooth, It's a Takedown, Heavy Kick Holdout, and Windmill For The Win.

We've added support for Medal.tv to capture gameplay clips.

• Inside Medal, you pick which moments auto-generate clips.
• By default, these trigger a clip: Level Won (Story and Infinite Disco), 3 K.O.s within 16 beats, and any 3 of Takedown / Perfect Counter / Dance Move within 16 beats.

Straight from your bug reports and feedback:

• Idol abilities were incorrectly handing out Fever Meter on hit. They no longer do.
• Fixed a bug that let you interrupt the scripted Echo during the transition out of the Reactor arena in Dex's level.
• Fixed a rare case where hitting Hemlock during his transition into phase 3 could leave him stuck in phase 2.
• Fixed Charlie falling out of bounds in rare cases on the Bridge in Dex's level.
• Fixed a lumen bug that caused lighting issues for some players at the Highway transition in Prophet's level.
• Fixed Studio Smash Hit, Complex Situation, and Versus Challenges not counting toward unlock conditions.
• Fixed Fever Rush not working for the "Perform Ability" custom objective.
• Fixed "ability used" objectives not incrementing in some cases when another ability fired during the current one's ending.
• Fixed a couple of Prophet-level cases where combo reset during transitions.
• Fixed the camera focus getting into a bad state during the Faith Challenge.
• Fixed the 3-2-1 countdown at the start of levels not pausing when the game was paused.
• Fixed the Drill Headspin dance move heart sound playing twice.
• That mystery train sound coming from the disco ball in The Encore? Gone.
• Fixed some godrays spawning on the cars in Prophet's Highway arena.
• Hemlock will now use the correct staggered VO lines.
• Fixed some of Prophet's voice lines getting cut off.

• Charlie and enemies now render in front of the 3, 2, 1 countdown..
• Stardoll lasers now land a more severe hit reaction when they catch you.
• Improved Stardoll laser visibility in darker arenas.
• Improved lighting on the Hemlock level Platform, plus a general optimization pass.
• Arora's cleave attack is a touch louder now.
• SFX adjustments for the Prophet boss fight.
• Slightly improved the visibility and usability of offscreen indicators.
• General UX / UI polish on the Cosmetics / Memorabilia / Skill Tree details panel.
• Fixed Skill Tree detail-panel button-prompt text spilling outside the box.
• Added new UI sounds for the Infinite Disco interface.
• Added an icon for random dance selection in the cosmetics UI.
• UX pass on the Advanced Editor and cleaned up the hotkey displays.
• Updated the Windmill move description to be clearer.
• Fixed the water not always working properly after an arena swap.
• Fixed leaderboards not scrolling with the Gamepad Right Stick.
• Fixed an issue with leaderboard size expanding more than expected when using a controller.
• Fixed text cutting off for mouse / keyboard when changing key binds.
• Fixed framerate drops when using a PlayStation controller over Bluetooth.

• The "Skill Tree" text on Stage Select is fixed and sits inside the box for ES, FR, PL, and PT.
• Fixed incorrect formatting in Japanese and Simplified Chinese.
• Localized "New" in the Skill Tree menu idol nav icons.
• Fixed an incorrect Simplified Chinese translation in the Custom Challenges > Enemy Spawns list.
• Added extra glyphs so Polish characters display correctly.

One Last Thing… At every stop on the tour we will try new things. We're looking for your feedback to help steer what comes next. This is Early Access done right so drop us your thoughts before the encore.

Speaking of which, how could we pack it up without teasing a little bit about the next stop on the tour? There's a brand new headliner waiting off-stage. A bit of Sugar and Spice, a seductive melody, and a rhythm that will have you swaying your hips to the beat.

Cuidado, a darkness that lies behind those eyes.

- The Dead as Disco Team