Rock Band 4’s next weekly DLC drop will be its last
Harmonix has added new songs each week for more than eight years.
Rock Band 4’s weekly DLC drops are coming to an end. Harmonix said Wednesday the upcoming batch of new songs on January 25 will be the game’s last. Although all other live services will remain active, the developer plans to give full attention to the Rock Band-like Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game inside Epic’s digital world.
Product manager Daniel Sussman waxed nostalgic about Rock Band 4’s impressive eight-year run of new song drops each week. “Taking a longer look back, I see the Rock Band DLC catalog as a huge achievement in persistence and commitment — over the years we’ve cleared, authored and released nearly 3,000 songs as DLC and well over 3,000 if you include all the game soundtracks,” he wrote in an announcement blog post. “That’s wild.”
Sussman says Harmonix is committed to protecting its licensing, promising that purchased content will remain available. He adds that all the game’s other live services, including Rivals and online play, will continue as usual. There just won’t be any more new music for the rhythm game, which arrived in 2015 with 65 tracks.
Fortnite Festival, launched in December, is a rock god stage in the popular battle royale title. It has the advantage of being free: You don’t have to pay a couple of bucks to fulfill your dreams of jamming out to “Seven Nation Army,” The Cranberries’ “Zombie” or Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison.”
Rock Band 4 instrument support is on its way to Epic’s virtual stage. “If you are a fan of the rhythm game category, Fortnite Festival is the place to be; and with support for RB4 instruments coming, this is not the time to hang up your guitars just yet…”
Harmonix is tight-lipped about its final tracks, but it promises thematic relevance. “We deliberated long and hard about how to frame the last blast of RB DLC of this era,” Sussman explained. “The last two weeks will feature some tear jerkers that sum up our feelings about this moment. We thank you for your commitment to and passion for this wonderful game.”
