Rhythm games are a fun genre and are very popular, games like Guitar Hero, and Rock Band swept the US for years, convincing parents to purchase plastic instruments for their children to bang on to music from across time, however, rhythm games have changed. Enter Pistol Whip, a VR-centric rhythm game that has player’s shooting enemies with a gun to the beat of the music, the better their aim is, the more points the player is going to score. The gameplay is simple, shoot the enemies to the beat of the song, but the game also asks players to bob and weave to avoid obstacles and incoming fire, as well as pistol whip enemies to regain shields and continue to play the game. Critics have compared this game to a musical version of John Wick, and when the game first came out, there were a few tracks to the game. However, Pistol Whip has made a new expansion for the game that let players take on stories interlaced with new songs for them to experience.

The first of these expansions came in the form of 2089, a cyberpunk campaign with comic book-styled cutscenes, where the character had to fight through the wasteland, evil space colonies, and ended with a boss fight that surprised many players. The success of the campaign for pistol whip convinced the developers to start work on a second Pistol Whip campaign, and this new campaign is coming out on August 12^th. 

The new expansion smoke and thunder have the players thrown into the wild west, wielding revolvers, double-barrel shotguns, and shooting explosive barrels out of the way. The game still retains the same polygonal pulsating art style, but the environments fuse well with the iconic pistol whip art style. Player’s will be going through wild west towns, mines, and more, as the game promises new weapons, as well as a new boss battle. The game will also include a brand new song from the band Magic Sword before the song comes to any other streaming service. Magic Sword is the same band that did work for the game Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. The final song in the game coming from the synthwave band. 

The game is also going to be getting a new modifier system, called Styles, letting players mix and match modifiers to play the game in the way that they want to. And while modifiers will change the number of scores that players get, which is a turn off for players who won’t go get a high score, the incentive for using the modifiers has been changed to make them more appealing for players who want to conquer the leaderboards, as the game is going to have specific leaderboards for modifiers, making it worthwhile to play with the modifiers without having to worry about how the modifier is going to affect the overall score of a single level.

However, there’s one downside for players looking to pick up this game after the launch of Smoke and thunder, as the game is going to increase in price with the release of Smoke and Thunder. Currently, Pistol Whip is sitting at $25, however, with the additions of 2089, and now Smoke and Thunder, the developers, Cloudhead Games, are looking to increase the price to $30. However, players who own Pistol Whip currently will be getting the expansion for free, without having to pay more. For anyone who is wanting to still purchase the game for $25, the price is still the same until the launch of the game on August 12^th for PC, Quest and PSVR.