Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: Switch (2), PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Tested on: Switch 2
Just Dance 2026 Edition – Review
When we returned to the Just Dance series last year, it was after a 14-year gap. The core gameplay experience hadn’t changed all that much between Just Dance 2 on the Wii and Just Dance 2025, but the way that the latter felt more like a subscription-based service than a standalone game made for quite the culture shock. Fast forward one year -time really does fly by- and we’re dusting off our shoes again for the newest entry in Ubisoft’s hit dancing game series. Did Just Dance 2026 Edition have us putting our best foot forward, or was it murder on the dancefloor?
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Just Dance 2026 is the exact same game as Just Dance 2025 – in many ways, it is. The game doesn’t even install as its own separate entry, and is instead treated as a DLC if you have any of the current “generation” of Just Dance games already, going all the way back to 2023. That said, Just Dance 2026 isn’t just an entry point: it adds more than just a new batch of songs to the library. The biggest shakeup comes with the new Party Mode. Hosted by Dr. Gigavolt, this mode adds both disturbances and challenges to the familiar gameplay. While you’re dancing, you might suddenly find that electric currents or slime cover parts of the screen, meaning you’ll have to rely on your sense of rhythm and familiarity with a dance to keep going. At other times, you’ll be prompted to perform actions mid-dance, like clapping or even freezing entirely. As the name implies, Party Mode is best enjoyed in the company of other dancers rather than when playing solo. The deliberate chaos that Dr. Gigavolt introduces doesn’t just add laughs, but it also removes a lot of competitive edge, should you find yourself with a group of friends who take strutting your stuff to All Star a bit too seriously. While Party Mode is introduced alongside Just Dance 2026, it has been retroactively added to the previous three editions of the game as well.
Elsewhere, Just Dance 2026 officially adds the so-called Camera Controller feature. This feature is essentially a return to the days of the Kinect, eliminating the need to hold a controller or your smartphone while you’re dancing. Instead, you use the camera of that same smartphone to register your moves. Surprisingly, Just Dance 2026 doesn’t take advantage of the hardware of the Nintendo Switch 2 -which is what we tested the game on- to make use of the Switch 2 camera. It’s worth noting that Camera Controller is only available when you’re playing solo, so if you’re playing with friends -arguably the reason most people put on Just Dance in the first place- then you’re using motion controls anyway instead.
The Switch and Switch 2 remain the best way to play Just Dance, because of the Joy-Cons. The game supports the use of smartphones as controllers, but the accuracy of those is highly dependent on the actual hardware of the phones in question, whereas the baseline remains the same if everyone is using identical controllers. We should note that we didn’t notice any discernible difference between using OG Joy-Cons or the newer Switch 2 ones, though this may just be because Just Dance 2026 runs as a backwards compatible title and not as a Switch 2-specific port. We don’t expect any massive overhauls in the coming year, but perhaps Just Dance 2027 will add Switch 2-specific improvements, once the install base for the platform is large enough.
As far as the core experience goes, Just Dance 2026 definitely doesn’t feel like a revolution -we’d even hesitate to call it an evolution. The foundations of 2025 remain virtually untouched, and so does the business model we disliked a year ago. The vast majority of songs remain locked behind having purchased annual editions or being subscribed to Just Dance+. Our own permanent library now includes both the 2025 and 2026 tracks, and even though we still have Just Dance+ for the time being, the songs from 2023 and 2024 are locked behind a paywall. How much of a loss that is depends on how much you like these songs. We’d be happier if the “locked” content could be added on a by-song basis: we wouldn’t mind rocking out to Danger! High Voltage but couldn’t care less about Boy with Luv -sorry, BTS fans. It doesn’t really make sense for Ubisoft to market Just Dance 2026 as its own thing either. As far as we’re concerned, there is a subscription-based game, Just Dance, that you can buy annual song packs for. The core experience, for better or worse, is the same today as it was in 2023.
Conclusion
Back in 2009, Ubisoft struck gold with the first Just Dance game. That sentiment continues to resonate, even sixteen years on. It’s almost laughable how such a simple idea works so well, both as a workout for solo players wanting to work up a sweat and for taking center stage when you have a group of friends over. We can’t deny just how good the formula works, which makes it all the more disappointing how much modern Just Dance feels designed to monetize as much as is acceptable for a full-price game. We realize this makes us sound cynical, so don’t get us wrong: the core of Just Dance 2026 is just as good as the series has been over nearly two decades. It’s just that the series hasn’t really evolved in a meaningful way since that first game. Unless you absolutely want to shell out for the new set of songs, there is little to no reason not to stick with previous entries.
No Comments