Beatstar shut down. What to play now.
The servers went off on 31 October 2025 and are not coming back. This page lists what is live on iPhone today, what each game does well, and what we are taking from them while we build our own.
We are making one of these. “1 Beat: Hit Music Game” is our own four-lane rhythm game, in development, not yet released. So this is not a ranking. The store numbers are measured rather than described, and for every game we have written down what it gets right and what we are learning from it.
What Beatstar got right
Everything on this page is measured against Beatstar, so it is worth saying what that was.
| What Beatstar did | What 1 Beat takes from it |
|---|---|
| Put songs people already loved on the highway | Chart-topping tracks rather than music written for the game. |
| Kept to taps, holds and swipes, in portrait | The same three note types, on four lanes instead of three. |
| Scored every note on how well you timed it | Timing read from the touch event, so a dropped frame is not a missed note. |
The catalogue is the part nobody can replace
Beatstar carried over 850 licensed tracks from all three major labels and reportedly paid eight figures a year in US dollars for the privilege. That number, not the gameplay, is what made it feel the way it did — and it is also what made it fragile. No free game on the store today has a catalogue of that kind.
What is live on iPhone
Store figures below were measured from Apple's US storefront on 6 October 2026. Ratings move, so check the date before trusting the numbers.
| Game | Lanes | Rating | Ratings | Last update |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SuperStar: Music Game | 3 | 4.81 | 3,657 | Oct 3, 2026 |
| Hi Beatz | 4 | 4.78 | 437 | Sep 29, 2026 |
| Magic Tiles 3™: Piano Game | 4 | 4.63 | 835,365 | Oct 6, 2026 |
The last column shows how recently each game shipped a new version — worth a glance before you put a hundred hours into anything.
What each one does well, and what we take from it
SuperStar: Music Game
The most visible option on the App Store for anyone searching for something like Beatstar, and the one adding ratings fastest by a wide margin.
What it does well:
- three lanes in portrait, the layout Beatstar players already know
- a steady release rhythm — a new version shipped three days before we measured
- easy to find, which matters more than it sounds when the game you loved has just vanished
What 1 Beat takes from it:
Staying close to what Beatstar players already read is worth a lot. 1 Beat keeps the portrait highway and the same tap, hold and swipe, and adds a fourth lane.
Hi Beatz
A four-lane game with a larger following on Android than on iOS so far.
What it does well:
- no forced adverts in the middle of a session
- no energy meter deciding when you are allowed to play — the thing its players praise most
What 1 Beat takes from it:
A run should be yours to finish. 1 Beat is no-fail by default: a bad run ends as a bad score.
Magic Tiles 3™: Piano Game
A piano-tile game rather than a note-highway game: you follow a melody line instead of hitting percussive cues. Enormous, and the one search results suggest most often.
What it does well:
- playable with one thumb
- a scale of audience that shows how many people want music under their fingers
What 1 Beat takes from it:
One hand has to be enough. In 1 Beat one hand works, and two hands work better.
These notes draw on public store listings and on what players write in reviews. Software changes, so check the measurement date above.
The original, the hard way
A community project called Beatclone pairs a modified Beatstar client with a privately run server, which is why it still works. It is the only route to the real catalogue. On Android it is one file. On iPhone it needs a computer and has to be redone roughly every seven days —we explained what that actually involves.
So, pick one
| If you… | Then |
|---|---|
| want something to play tonight, from the App Store | SuperStar: Music Game. It is the most active of the three. |
| like the sound of no forced adverts and no energy meters | Hi Beatz. |
| want the actual Beatstar catalogue and own a computer | Beatclone, accepting the weekly chore and the grey area. |
| mainly care about timing being right on your headphones | Measure your own devices here first. It shows how large the gap between them is. |
What 1 Beat is still trying to build
Learning from these games is the easy half. The half that is not finished: a separate audio offset remembered for every pair of headphones you own, a song list worth the name, and a build you can actually install. None of that is out yet.
If you want to follow along
“1 Beat: Hit Music Game” is four lanes, free, on iPhone and Android, with timing read from the touch event. It is in development. There is nothing to download yet.