Beat Saber, the block-slashing rhythm game, now has a music pack featuring the infectious grooves of South Korean pop group BTS.
The paid DLC music pack brings the septet to the game for the first time in the form of animated chibi characters, called ‘TinyTAN’, who fly in during songs to sing and dance as you chop away at in-coming blocks.
Now available on all platforms, the BTS music pack features 12 tracks:
Blood Sweat & Tears
Boy With Luv (Feat. Halsey)
Burning Up (FIRE)
Dionysus
DNA
DOPE
Dynamite
FAKE LOVE
IDOL
MIC Drop (Steve Aoki Remix)
Not Today
UGH!
Like most music packs for the game, the newBTS Music Pack is a paid DLC ($15) available across all supported platforms, including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, SteamVR, and PSVR.
Inaugurating the launch of Oculus Quest 2 back in October, multiplayer support lets you slash alongside four other players in both private and public matches. Beat Saber’s multiplayer mode doesn’t feature cross-platform play, and only supports official songs in the base game and DLCs, however Facebook’s studio Beat Games says multiplayer may go cross-play at some point in the future.
Multiplayer support for PlayStation VR is notably still missing, which is expected to arrive sometime next year.
The BTS music pack for Beat Saber is available from today for all platforms.
This latest set of DLC for the ever-popular rhythm game was initially announced back at Facebook Connect in September. The news came alongside a release date for the much anticipated multiplayer update, which then launched on October 13. All of the songs in the BTS music pack will be compatible with multiplayer too.
The pack features 12 of the band’s songs, making it the biggest Beat Saber music pack so far. The tracklist is as follows:
Blood Sweat & Tears
Boy With Luv (Feat. Halsey)
Burning Up (FIRE)
Dionysus
DNA
DOPE
Dynamite
FAKE LOVE
IDOL
MIC Drop (Steve Aoki Remix)
Not Today
UGH!
The BTS pack will also feature ‘TinyTan characters’, which are little animated characters representing each of the members of the band. As players run through the music pack, they will encounter the TinyTan character, which Oculus says will “bring comfort and inspire appreciation of the little things in life.”
In 2019, Facebook acquired developer Beat Games, and the rate of release (and prestige) of the DLC music packs has increased quite significantly ever since. The BTS music pack is one just many recent high-profile releases, including the Panic! At The Disco pack, the Green Day pack, the Imagine Dragons pack, the Linkin Park pack, the Timbaland pack.
If you’re new to Beat Saber and want to know which music packs are the best, we’ve ranked our the top five best ones here. While we haven’t had a chance to try the BTS pack yet, the list will give you a good idea of the best packs released so far.
The BTS Beat Saber music pack is available from today across all platforms.
Looking for the best Beat Saber DLC? We’ve got you covered.
Beat Games released several Beat Saber DLC packs over the last few years, but with so many available, how do you know which ones to choose? List time!
If you’ve just got a new VR headset, like the Oculus Quest 2, one of the first games you’ll probably buy is Beat Saber. While the base game comes with a huge amount of content, some of the game’s best tracks (and tracks featuring popular artists) are not included, and sold separately as DLC music packs.
There have been 12 music pack releases so far, and we’ve picked our top 10 to rank for you. Each pack is slightly different, some with more or fewer songs than others. You can choose to buy the whole pack for a slightly discounted price,or just buy songs individually. We’ve marked a ‘Stand-Out Track’ in each DLC pack, so if you’re interested in buying just one song from that artist, you know our pick.
Keep in mind that personal taste also plays a big role here. We’ve tried to rank these packs based on the mapping and gameplay experience as much as their connection to the music. But, if you love an artist then you’re also probably more likely to put them on your own list of the best Beat Saber DLC, regardless of how we’ve ranked it here.
Without further ado, here’s our ranking of the top ten best Beat Saber DLC music packs. You can grab these packs on the Oculus Store for Quest and Rift, Steam and the PlayStation Store.
Best Beat Saber DLC
10. Imagine Dragons
What you see here is what you get — it’s an Imagine Dragons music pack that’s neither excellent nor terrible. There’s 10 tracks included, making it one of the bigger selections, and all of the band’s biggest hits are included. For Imagine Dragons fans, this is a must have, but if you’re indifferent, maybe just buy one or two songs instead of all 10.
Stand-Out Track: Believer
9. Monstercat Vol 1
Monstercat was the first big release of a full music pack for Beat Saber. How much you like this pack will probably depend on how much you like the style of EDM music that’s featured in it, which can be a pretty polarizing genre but is what Beat Saber was really built upon in the first place. This was something David acknowledged in his review early last year — while the music wasn’t his first preference and he was left wanting a bit more variety, it’s still an excellent release and a worthy addition to the best Beat Saber DLC list.
Stand-Out Track: Overkill
8. Skrillex
This pack, while a separate artist DLC release, feels quite close to the EDM tracks found in the Beat Saber OST, with its own unique flair. The tracks span Skrillex’s career, including the infamous Bangarang, and are all solid additions to the Beat Saber library. If you’re a fan of EDM, dubstep or Skrillex, you’ll probably enjoy this pack. It’s the one that feels closest to home when compared to the OG Beat Saber tracks.
Stand-Out Track: Bangarang
7. Panic! At The Disco
This pack is incredibly fun and the mappings suitably match the fun style of Panic!’s music, making it an easy addition to the best Beat Saber DLC list. There are some great moments where the block mappings are playfully interacting with the song, and some tracks feel much more dance-orientated than other Beat Saber releases. It’s still got the same core slashing gameplay, but this pack feels a little bit more lively. The only disappointing part is the very small selection of songs — with only four songs included, this is the smallest DLC pack released. Plus, it’s missing the band’s iconic debut hit I Write Sins, Not Tragedies, which feels like a strange omission.
Stand-Out Track: Emperor’s New Clothes
6. Green Day
The Green Day music pack tried to shake up the standard formula a bit, and for the most part it works. At the time of release, it was the only rock-based music available for Beat Saber and the mappings of each track adjusted their style accordingly. Compared to the original Beat Saber soundtrack and other DLC releases, the mappings for the Green Day tracks can feel a little bit more rigid and syncopated, focus on drums and strong rhythmic beats. This definitely isn’t a bad thing — it gives the pack its own unique feel and leans into the rock genre perfectly. The Green Day environment, featuring the American Idiot grenade heart, looks spectacular as well.
If there’s one thing that lets this pack down, it’s the song selection. For starters, there’s only 6 songs, two of which are from Green Day’s 2019 album Father of All… Given the timing, this was clearly a promo move, but it’s a shame those two tracks couldn’t have been filled by other classic (and much better) Green Day tracks. Still, it retains its crown of one of the best Beat Saber DLC packs.
Stand-Out Track: American Idiot
5. BTS
Moving into the top half of the best Beat Saber DLC list, this pack is a must for BTS fans. It’s one of the bigger packs available and the music has a high-energy feel that gels well with Beat Saber. The maps use walls a lot more than most Beat Saber songs, which gets you moving more than you might be used to.
It uses this alongside more synchronized left and right blocks and diagonal directions to achieve a dancier feel than some of the more rigid or electronic maps. The fast tempo of most BTS songs also means that, when playing on Expert and above, these maps do feel a bit more complicated to master immediately than some of the other DLC releases – whether that’s a good thing depends on what you’re looking for.
It also features little ‘TinyTan characters’ — aka cartoon versions of the BTS band — that pop up here and there throughout the maps, if you’re into that.
Stand-Out Track: Dynamite
4. Interscope Mixtape
Unlike the other DLC releases, this music pack features a mix of different artists on each track, all signed to part of Interscope Records (hence the title). You can see the full tracklist here, but it includes Kendrick Lamar, Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani and some other big names. Most of the tracks in this pack feel like throwbacks to the 2000s/10s era pop, which isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, tracks like The Sweet Escape have a fun, bouncy feel to the beat maps that differentiates itself from other releases. Likewise, it’s a real breath of fresh air to get some rap featured in Beat Saber. If you want a mix of genres and artists, then this pack is the best bang for your buck.
Stand-Out Track: DNA by Kendrick Lamar
3. Lady Gaga
One of the most entertaining and generous packs on this list, the Lady Gaga DLC gets really creative and offers beat maps that feel engaging, challenging and yet reflective of Gaga’s musical style. Most tracks have some zany quirks that embody the spirit of the music, making the release feel distinct from its peers.
The other big highlight of this pack is the selection on offer – almost all of Gaga’s biggest hits are available in the pack, particularly those from her first couple of albums. It’s a mix of old and new songs that will surely satisfy any Gaga fans and ranks highly on our list of the best Beat Saber DLC.
Stand-Out Track: Just Dance
2. Linkin Park
Green Day may have been the first pack to implement rock music in Beat Saber, but the Linkin Park pack is the one that perfected it. We were absolutely astounded by the DLC in our review in 2020, calling it a “dream come true” for Linkin Park fans. There is a massive selection of 11 songs, which span across several albums and include most of the band’s greatest hits. Not only is there a breadth of tracks available, but their mappings are excellent and have great depth across the entire collection of songs.
If you’re a Linkin Park fan, then this DLC pack is essential. Even if you’re not, this is still one of the best Beat Saber DLC packs. You can read our full review here.
Stand-Out Track: One Step Closer
1. Billie Eilish
Symbolically, the Billie Eilish music pack is one of the most significant releases so far. Eilish is one of the biggest music stars in the world right now, so to get her music into Beat Saber is a huge boon for Meta and Beat Games.
Luckily, the tracks live up to the pressure and the beat maps feel representative to Billie’s playfully dark style, while still feeling comfortably familiar within the wider Beat Saber library. It feels, overall, like the most polished and well-rounded DLC pack available for Beat Saber so far.
Stand-Out Track: bellyache
So those are our top ten best Beat Saber DLC packs, but what are yours? Let us know your favorite Beat Saber DLC tracks in the comments below.
If you want information on installing custom songs for Beat Saber, check out our guide. And make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for all of the latest updates.
Note: This best Beat Saber DLC article was originally published as a top five list in October 2020 and was expanded to top ten and republished in January 2022.
Looking for the best Beat Saber DLC? We’ve got you covered – several Beat Saber DLC packs have released over the last few years — but with so many available, how do you know which ones to choose? List time!
If you’ve just got a new VR headset, like the Oculus Quest 2, one of the first games you’ll probably buy is Beat Saber. While the base game comes with a huge amount of content, some of the game’s best tracks (and tracks featuring popular artists) are not included, and sold separately as DLC music packs.
There have been 7 music pack releases so far, and we’ve picked our top 5 to rank for you. Each pack is slightly different, some with more or fewer songs than others, but you can choose to buy the whole pack, for a slightly discounted price, or just buy songs individually. For that reason, we’ve marked a ‘Stand-Out Track’ for each DLC pack, so that if you’re just interested in buying one song from that artist, you know which is the best.
Here’s our ranking of the top five best Beat Saber DLC music packs.
Best Beat Saber DLC
5. Imagine Dragons
What you see here is what you get — it’s an Imagine Dragons music pack that’s neither excellent nor terrible. There’s 10 tracks included in the pack, making it one of the bigger selections, and all of the band’s biggest hits are included. For Imagine Dragons fans, this is a must have, but if you’re indifferent, maybe just buy one or two songs instead of all 10.
Stand-Out Track: Believer
4. Monstercat Vol 1
Monstercat was the first big release of a full music pack for Beat Saber, and it remains one of the better ones. How much you like this pack will probably depend on how much you like the style of EDM music that’s featured in it, which can be a pretty polarizing genre but is what Beat Saber was really built upon in the first place. This was something David acknowledged in his review early last year — while the music wasn’t his first preference and he was left wanting a bit more variety, it’s still an excellent release.
Stand-Out Track: Overkill
3. Panic! At The Disco
This pack is incredibly fun and the mappings suitably match the fun style of Panic!’s music. There are some great moments where the block mappings are playfully interacting with the song, and some tracks feel much more dance-orientated than other Beat Saber releases. It’s still got the same core slashing gameplay, but this pack feels a little bit more lively. The only disappointing part is the very small selection of songs — with only four songs included, this is the smallest DLC pack released. Plus, it’s missing the band’s iconic debut hit I Write Sins, Not Tragedies, which feels like a strange omission.
Stand-Out Track: Emperor’s New Clothes
2. Green Day
The Green Day music pack tried to shake up the standard formula a bit, and for the most part it works. At the time of release, it was the only rock-based music available for Beat Saber and the mappings of each track adjusted their style accordingly. Compared to the original Beat Saber soundtrack and other DLC releases, the mappings for the Green Day tracks can feel a little bit more rigid and syncopated, focus on drums and strong rhythmic beats. This definitely isn’t a bad thing — it gives the pack it’s own unique feel and leans into the rock genre perfectly. The Green Day environment, featuring the American Idiot grenade heart, looks spectacular as well.
If there’s one thing that lets this pack down, it’s the song selection. For starters, there’s only 6 songs, two of which are from Green Day’s 2019 album Father of All… Given the timing, this was clearly a promo move, but it’s a shame those two tracks couldn’t have been filled by other classic (and much better) Green Day tracks.
Stand-Out Track: American Idiot
1. Linkin Park
Green Day may have been the first pack to implement rock music in Beat Saber, but the Linkin Park pack is the one that perfected it. In his review earlier this year, David was absolutely astounded by the DLC, calling it a “dream come true.” There is a massive selection of 11 songs, which span across several albums and include most of the band’s greatest hits. Not only is there a breadth of tracks available, but their mappings are excellent and have great depth across the entire collection of songs.
If you’re a Linkin Park fan, then this DLC pack is essential. Even if you’re not this is still one of the best Beat Saber DLC packs. You can read David’s full review here.
Stand-Out Track: One Step Closer
So those are our top five best Beat Saber DLC packs, but what are yours? Let us know your favorite Beat Saber DLC tracks in the comments below.
If you want information on installing custom songs for Beat Saber, check out our guide. And make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for all of the latest updates.
A new Beat Saber Linkin Park DLC releases today, offering the first new tracks for the hit VR app in a little while.
As teased on Friday, a total of 11 new songs from the band launch today. Three of them — including Bleed It Out and Paper Cut — are taken from the seminal Hybrid Theory album, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Factor in different difficulties and play types, and there are 55 new Beat Maps included in this pack. You can get them all for $13.99, or each song for $1.99.
But the full tracklist (which you can see below) spans the band’s entire career, also including essentials like One Step Closer and Numb. As usual, you’ll also get a new themed environment for these tracks. Check it out in the brief trailer below.
Beat Saber Linkin Park DLC Tracks
Bleed It Out
Breaking the Habit
Faint
Given Up
In The End
New Divide
Numb
One Step Closer
Papercut
Somewhere I Belong
What I’ve Done
By our count, this marks Beat Saber’s seventh premium DLC pack and its fifth based on popular artists. Earlier this year we saw a Timbaland pack featuring all-new music and Imagine Dragons, Panic! at the Disco and Green Day have all seen the Beat Saber treatment in the past. It’s been a pretty healthy balance of rock and dance tracks, especially when you factor in the free tracks added later too.
Last year Facebook announced the acquisition of developer Beat Games, a move that surely helped secure some of these bigger names. Since launch in Early Access a few years ago, Beat Saber has sold over two million copies.
You can expect the pack to hit on all of Beat Saber’s existing versions. That means Quest, Rift, SteamVR and PSVR. Will you be picking up the Beat Saber Linkin Park DLC today? Let us know in the comments!
Beat Saber just got a Linkin Park music pack today and we’ve already played through the list of songs to bring you our review. Spoiler alert: it’s fantastic.
It’s been a very, very long time since a Beat Saber music pack turned my head. When I got the email about the Linkin Park pack, dropping right around the band’s 20th anniversary of its smash-hit Hybrid Theory album, I was ecstatic.
I don’t really care for Imagine Dragons, Panic! at the Disco, or Green Day, so most of the non-electronic packs have flown under my radar. To be quite honest, I’ve had Beat Saber uninstalled for a long time. I’d Given Up. But I cannot tell you how quickly I reinstalled to download this music pack. As it turns out, it felt just like somewhere I belong.
The problem with most Beat Saber tracks from its original music packs and most of the DLC that has followed is that it all just kind of sounds the same. For example, the Monstercat pack is extremely good from a quality perspective, but I’d never heard any of those songs before. After playing one and finally getting the rhythm down, I didn’t feel any sort of surge of adrenaline when it was over. I was just Numb.
That’s not the case here. Despite it being past 4AM on a Sunday night / Monday morning I still found myself literally jumping up and down and head banging throughout many of the tracks. Admittedly, I have a lot of personal connection to this music. Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands and I’ll never forget the exact moment I found out Chester Bennington had died.
But regardless of that, the song selection feels like a perfect fit for Beat Saber. I think there’s a good reason why several Linkin Park songs are consistently popular on unofficial custom song download site, Beat Saver. Something about the rhythm, cadence, and tone feels right despite the lack of electronic sounds.
I’ve got two issues with the way this music pack is handled. First of all, there are no 360 or 180 levels as far as I can tell for any of the 11 new songs. It’s just standard front-facing only, five difficulties each, for a total of 55 new beat maps. It’s the biggest track list to date, but still a bummer not to get some alternative versions of the more popular ones like Numb and In The End.
On top of that, the difficulty curve feels a bit off. Like I explained before, it has been a long time since I played Beat Saber. Like, a really long time. Yet, I was able to hop in and get an S-rank on Hard for most of the tracks on my very first try. Flip it to Expert? I couldn’t even pass any of them for a while. I recorded footage using No Fail just to ensure the entire songs got captured.
Eventually I came around and could stumble through reasonably well, but the massive leap in difficulty between Hard and Expert here felt weird. That being said, it’s a consistent level of difficulty across all of the new music. Other than perhaps Bleed it Out due to its short length, or One Step Closer for its heavy rhythmic repetition, all of the songs are quite tough by my standards.
Beat Saber Linkin Park Track List:
Bleed It Out Breaking the Habit Faint Given Up In The End New Divide Numb One Step Closer Papercut Somewhere I Belong What I’ve Done
If you’re a Linkin Park fan, you can’t deny that’s a great list of tracks. The obvious ones like In The End, Numb, and One Step Closer all made the cut. Some other gems like Faint and What I’ve Done made the list too, much to my delight. The biggest and most obvious omission, other than more recent hits such as Burn it Down, is the absence of Crawling. That track is also from Hybrid Theory, the album that’s being celebrated here, and is the 6th most-popular song on Spotify from Linkin Park — just after 4 songs that made the list and the Numb / Encore remix. I’d have gladly left off Given Up to get Crawling, personally. Papercut could pass too if I’m splitting hairs.
One change thought that I loved, since it helps make the tracks fit in even better, is the replacement stage. Instead of standing on a neon highway with abstract shapes twisting and pulsing in the distance, you’re in a subway tunnel. Just, a normal subway tunnel for the most part, with the Hybrid Theory cover art painted on the floor. It’s appropriately symbol and fittingly comfortable.
Beat Saber Linkin Park Final Impressions
If you’re a fan of early 2000s-era rock music like me, then this is like a dream come true. The mapping for all 11 songs is fantastic and it represents an excellent highlight list of some of the band’s biggest hits from not only Hybrid Theory, but albums that followed as well. Linkin Park has a uniquely identifiable sound that mixes heavy rhythmic guitar, intoxicating dual vocalists, and deeply personal lyrics that you can’t help but feel while slicing through the air. I had fallen out of love with Beat Saber, but this music pack has brought me One Step Closer to appreciating it all over again.
Beat Saber’s Linkin Park 11-song music pack is out today for $13.99 or $1.99 per song, it’s the largest collection of music released to date. This review was conducted on the Oculus Quest version of Beat Saber. For more on how we arrived at this score, check out our review guidelines.
Beat Saber is undoubtedly one of the biggest games on any VR platform at the moment and it consistently receives new music packs themed around a certain artist. But what’s next?
As Beat Games started on a path to being acquired by Facebook, we’ve seen Beat Saber feature DLC music packs with artists that are a bit more prominent and mainstream, such as Panic! at the Disco, Green Day and Timbaland.
The last few DLC releases for Beat Saber each explored a genre of music that’s new to Beat Saber, while still featuring fairly mainstream and popular artists. You’ve all probably got your own opinions and niche picks for a list like this, but we’ve tried to follow the same trend of picking big artists with a distinct style or genre of music that would be fairly new to the Beat Saber catalog.
So, here’s our list of 10 artists that we’d love to see appear as DLC music packs in Beat Saber, plus some recommendations of specific tracks that we think would fit well.
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish is one of the biggest names in pop music at the moment, but not for producing pop music in conventional terms. While she’s become a large mainstream artist, a lot of her music features unconventional sounds, themes and structures. She draws influence from a wide range of music styles and while some of her tracks might be a bit slow for Beat Saber, there’s definitely a few playful hits that could work well.
Eilish also has a very distinct dark visual style, and is known for having clear direction on how each of her music videos should look. This could work well with the maps’ visuals, producing some dark and spooky environments to match the music.
Potential tracks: Bad Guy, All The Good Girls Go To Hell, Bury A Friend
Queen
There’s been calls for some classic rock or pre-2000s music to make its way into Beat Saber for so long, and what better band would there be to lead the charge than Queen? So many other popular rhythm games have featured the iconic band in some capacity, so it feels only fitting that they get the Beat Saber treatment as well. Queen is a timeless band, adored across generations, making them a perfect and accessible pick for a DLC music pack.
Potential tracks: Don’t Stop Me Now, Under Pressure, Bohemian Rhapsody
ABBA
Who doesn’t like a bit of ABBA? If we’re not going to get Queen, then the next best pick would surely be some of the Swedish pop group’s danceable tracks. If you need proof that ABBA in Beat Saber would work, just check out some of the custom tracks that exist online already.
There’s huge potential for unique, more danceable beat maps in such a DLC pack. No one can resist bopping along to Dancing Queen, but give us a Beat Saber version as well!
Potential Tracks: Dancing Queen, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), Mamma Mia
Lizzo
One of the biggest breakout artists of 2019, Lizzo’s tracks feature danceable beats and lots of positive vibes. Her music would probably scale particularly well across difficulties as well, with equal potential for simple Easy maps and extravagant Expert+ maps.
Bruno Mars is an artist that a lot of people feel very average about, but there’s no denying his tracks gain widespread playtime around the world. You may not love every Bruno Mars single, but you probably know most of them. He manages to produce music that’s simultaneously modern while also dripping in nostalgia, and there’s already some super fun Bruno custom tracks online — let’s make it official!
Potential tracks: 24K Magic, Finesse, Uptown Funk
The Killers
The Killers are not the most famous rock band on the planet, and they’re mostly known for their early career hits. However, tracks like Mr Brightside are undeniably huge and would probably draw interest from the Beat Saber crowd. The Green Day song pack proved that Beat Saber maps can be adapted to work with rock music quite well, and we’d like to see something similar happen here.
Potential Tracks: Mr Brightside, When You Were Young, Somebody Told Me
David Bowie
Admittedly, this is the biggest curveball on the list and seems quite unlikely, but we can dream! It might seem like an odd fit at first, a lot of Bowie’s songs could produce really interesting and different beat maps. That being said, despite Bowie’s legendary status, if Facebook is going to go with a pre-2000s artist, they’ll probably be more inclined to go with a safer pick, such as Queen or ABBA. Still, it would be awesome to play some Bowie
It’s true, Kanye has not been in the most top form lately, both musically and otherwise, but some of his earlier work could make for some sublime Beat Saber tracks, especially given we’ve yet to receive a rap-focused Beat Saber song pack.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to this song pack becoming a reality is Kanye himself — his songs aren’t all that family friendly, and given recent events, he might not be a public figure Facebook would be inclined to associate with. But some of his music could make for some incredibly fun and dynamic Beat Saber beat maps, and his popularity is undeniable.
Potential tracks: Stronger, Power, Heartless
Daft Punk
This one feels like a real no-brainer. The French electronic music duo would be an amazing fit, and there’s already loads of custom Beat Saber tracks online featuring their music. Daft Punk are almost universally acclaimed and could attract a huge audience. While Beat Saber does already have a large selection of electronic music, Daft Punk tracks would carry a certain prestige that some of the existing EDM tracks in the game do not.
Potential tracks: One More Time, Get Lucky, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Taylor Swift
While her music is not for everyone, Taylor Swift has an astounding audience of young fans across a range of different ages. A music pack of her tracks might not appeal to everyone, but it also has potential to attract a different crowd to Beat Saber than usual. Her music is family friendly and features heaps of pop tracks that would translate excellently across to Beat Saber — it might be a slightly unconventional pick, but it could be a good one.
Potential tracks: Shake It Off, Style, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
So, there’s our list but what’s yours? Let us know who you’d like to see in a Beat Saber DLC music pack in the comments below.
Update March 26: The Timbaland Music Pack is now available in Beat Saber on all supported platforms. Original post published March 17 below.
As part of its Game Developers Showcase this week, Facebook unveiled the details of Beat Saber’s next DLC music pack. Following on from the Green Day and Panic! At The Disco music packs, the next installment will be a Timbaland music pack featuring 5 original songs made exclusively for the game.
You might remember Timbaland from the 90s and 2000s – he’s an American rapper, music producer and DJ known for his original music and music production, often collaborating with other artists such as Justin Timberlake and Chris Cornell (yes, really, Chris Cornell). His Beat Saber music pack will include 5 original tracks, written and produced exclusively for Beat Saber, each featuring different artists. The track list is as follows:
Sid Tipton, Timbaland – Has A Meaning
Kaydence, Timbaland – Dumb Thingz
Wavezswavesz – While We’re Young
Nash Overstreet, Karra & Common Strangers – What I Like
Bruno Martini, Timbaland – Famous ft. Jake Davis
The music pack will launch later this month on March 26 for $7.99 as a bundle or for $1.99 per track. Each track will also be released on major music platforms, such as Spotify, iTunes and Apple Music, to stream and purchase from midnight PT on March 26.
This music pack follows on from the Green Day music pack, released late last year. In my review, I thought Green Day’s rock tracks presented a nice change of pace from previous Beat Saber releases. All the existing music packs span a mix of different genres, with the Beat Saber levels changing in pace, feel and style to reflect the different kinds of music. It will be interesting to see whether any R&B and rap tracks in the Timbaland music pack will present a different style of play to what we’ve seen before.
The Timbaland music pack arrives in Beat Saber on March 26, available for $7.99 as a bundle or $1.99 per track.
Time to clear your play space; three new free Beat Saber songs just arrived in the latest update.
Each of the free Beat Saber songs is from Japanese artist, Cametek. They include Exit This Earth’s Atomosphere, GHOST and Light It Up.
Beat Games teased the new track’s release on Twitter for their omnipresent VR hit earlier this week. At the time they confirmed one track would boast an insane average of 8.7(ish) notes per second. We don’t know which of these tracks is the one to hit that milestone.
フリー新曲出た！💎
The new update with 3 new free tracks by one & only @cametek just landed on Steam, PlayStation Store & Oculus Store!
We’re releasing:
> Exit This Earth’s Atomosphere
> GHOST
> Light It Up
8.7 notes per second is an insanely high average, so we wouldn’t expect this new track to be a breeze on higher difficulties, that’s for sure. No doubt someone will have mastered it within the next few hours, though.
Some users on Twitter originally speculated the track could be a new one from Camellia, a producer of electronic vocaloid music. Beat Games dropped three Camellia tracks mid-last year, which were available for free. Those tracks are on the higher end of the difficulty scale, which is why some people have taken the 8.7 notes per second average as a sign more of Camellia was on the way. Personally, we’re excited to see someone new join the fold.
After potentially over 100 failed attempts, I finally passed American Idiot on Expert difficulty. Despite being absolutely drenched in sweat and beyond exhausted, I realised I had finally come to enjoy playing the level after initially being frustrated. However, whether that was genuine enjoyment or just Stockholm Syndrome was still unclear.
After more thought, it’s definitely the former. While I found some of the tracks in the Green Day music pack frustrating at first, they’re ultimately just designed slightly differently to fit the rock genre better. After an adjustment period, you’ll be slashing your way through blocks that feel perfectly in-line with Green Day’s punk rock attitude.
Included Tracks
The tracks included don’t go too far back into the Green Day discography – there are two tracks from their upcoming album (‘Father of All…’ and ‘Ready, Set, Fire’) and then a smattering of American Idiot tracks (‘American Idiot’, ‘Holiday’ and ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’) and then one track from Warning (‘Minority’). The six tracks will set you back $8.99 as a bundle or $1.99 each.
However, what’s most important about this pack is that these Green Day tracks are the first rock tracks we’ve seen in Beat Saber. The Panic! At The Disco pack is more pop punk, Imagine Dragons leans more towards the pop side as well, and everything before that is electronic or pop music. I’ve personally been clamoring for more varied genres for a while, so it’s fantastic to finally see some pure rock represented in the game.
However, I realized that some of my initial frustrations with the Green Day Beat Saber tracks are probably related to why it took so long for the game’s music to veer away from pop and electronic. Rock doesn’t immediately lend itself quite as well to Beat Saber tracks as you might think. Things get a little more rigid and there’s a lot of potential for repetition, leading to some stale tracks. Overall though, the Green Day pack works well but feels stylistically different to some of the existing Beat Saber catalog.
This isn’t a bad thing – in fact, it’s the opposite. With each new music pack, players are getting different styles of levels to match the music they’re built from. The Panic! At The Disco levels have a really nice flow and feel elegant, even at the higher difficulties, perfectly matching the panache you might associate with Brendan Urie. By contrast, the Green Day levels feel much more rough around the edges, tighter and, at times, more punishing – definitely more befitting a punk rock band with attitude.
Speaking of attitude, Green Day is well known for their use of profanity and all of the tracks in this music pack are censored with beeps. It doesn’t completely ruin things, but it can be distracting.
Drumming to the Beat
In most of the Green Day tracks, the higher difficulties focus on mapping blocks to Tré Cool’s complicated drum beats and fills. ‘American Idiot’ is a prime example – with such a rhythmically-sparse track, you mostly mirror the rigid drums and guitar patterns. When you get it right, hitting those beats feels incredible. However, to begin with, I found this track to be a lot more daunting and frustrating than others. It took me many, many tries to pass American Idiot on Expert difficulty for the first time compared to other Expert tracks in the game. By contrast, when the Panic! At The Disco tracks released, I was able pass most of them on Expert after only a few attempts at each.
This reliance on the drums also means that some of the Green Day tracks are noticeably easier than others – there is a huge disparity in how these tracks are rated in terms of difficulty. Comparing Boulevard of Broken Dreams on Expert to American Idiot on Expert will leave you confused – the former feels like a walk in the park, with fewer blocks and less complication, and the latter is a real a workout that sends your arms flying to match frenzied drum beats and fills.
Some Missed Opportunities
Personally, I feel that other tracks from Green Day’s discography would have made for much more interesting levels. The bass line and drum combination from ‘Longview’ screams Beat Saber. Likewise, ‘Welcome to Paradise’ might have provided a bit more rhythmic variety than ‘Holiday’, which can feel a bit passé at times. To keep the selection within Green Day’s more recent tunes, the 9-minute anthem and fan-favourite ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ would have been hilarious to see in Beat Saber, with all its twists and turns. It would have been an exhaustingly long level, no doubt, but it definitely would have provided more variety than some of the tracks we ended up with.
This isn’t to say the included levels are bad. They’re a lot of fun and the ones that provide a bit of a challenge are well worth the time investment. The theming on each level is also fantastic – the blocks are changed to hues of green, set against a bright green backdrop with the iconic hand-grenade heart from the American Idiot cover hanging over the track ahead of you. A lot of effort has been put in and the resulting tracks can be excellent at times, but I also wish we had gotten more tracks, or at least some with more rhythmic variety.
Other Beat Saber Updates
The launch of this pack also coincided with the launch of 360 and 90 degree levels, which have you spinning around as blocks come at your from different angles instead of just straight ahead (although PSVR uses only gets the 90 degree variants, not the 360 degree ones, due to tracking constraints). The 360 and 90 degree variants are only available on certain tracks, spread across the original Beat Saber OST and all of the music packs so far.
I found this new style to be a mixed bag. While refreshing, the 360 and 90 degree levels are only available in one pre-determined difficulty per song. For example, the 360 and 90 degrees variant of ‘Holiday’ in the Green Day pack are only available set at Hard difficulty. If more difficulty options were given, I might have stayed more interested. Nonetheless, the new style makes for great variation from the standard tracks, which many will no doubt enjoy.
Beat Saber Green Day Music Pack Review Final Verdict:
All that being said, the Green Day music pack is indicative of the path Beat Saber should continue on if it wants to keep its currently-unbeatable poster-child status in the VR world. Green Day is a big name and the first proper rock band to feature in Beat Saber. They’re sure to draw a wider, or at least more diverse, audience than some of the other packs, and that variety can only lead to more widespread appeal for the game overall.
This pack also feels a bit more ‘full’ than the closest and most recent equivalent – the Panic! At The Disco pack. There’s a few more songs, the theming of the levels is more extensive and you get some tracks that feel a bit stylistically different from what’s already on offer. Overall, these levels are definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re a Green Day fan.
Hopefully this is the first of many music packs to come that feature popular artists from a range of different genres. With enough variety, Beat Saber will soon have a music pack to fit almost anyone’s music taste.
This review was conducted using the Oculus Quest version of Beat Saber. The Green Day music pack is available on all platforms that already contain Beat Saber and costs $8.99 for all six songs or each song can be purchased individually for $1.99.
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