Nintendo has announced a release date for Splatoon 3’s Side Order DLC.
17.01.2024 - 19:53 / gameinformer.com / Brian Shea
When Rock Band initially launched in 2007, Harmonix touted it as a platform for players going forward. While subsequent launches and peripherals joined the mix in the succeeding years, the main pillar for that claim is the developer's steadfast support of the Rock Band platform through its aggressive downloadable content schedule. Today, however, the studio announced the end of Rock Band 4 downloadable content.
The news comes more than two years after Harmonix was acquired by Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games. Epic has since leveraged the studio's expertise for a side game within Fortnite called Fortnite Festival, which utilizes gameplay similar to the Rock Band. In the time since the studio's acquisition, the developer has closed the online servers for Rock Band 3, ended post-launch support for Fuser, and now, has ended Rock Band 4's more-than-eight-year run of weekly DLC.
According to Harmonix, the final DLC, which is scheduled to release on January 25, will reflect the team's feelings about this news. «We deliberated long and hard about how to frame the last blast of RB DLC of this era,» Harmonix product manager Daniel Sussman wrote in a blog post. «The last two weeks will feature some tear-jerkers that sum up our feelings about this moment.»
Today, which is the second-to-last release for this run of DLC, includes Elton John's «Goodbye Yellow Brick Road» and The Troggs' «Our Love Will Still Be There.» When Harmonix closed out Rock Band 3 DLC in 2013, its final release was Don McLean's «American Pie.»
The developer trailblazed forward compatible downloadable content, even leaping across console generations and rolling over the majority of its base-game songs into future entries. Outside of a break that started in April 2013 and lasted until Rock Band 4 launched in October 2015 (save for a random week in January 2015), Harmonix has supported the Rock Band series through weekly DLC drops since 2007. To date, Harmonix has released more than 3,000 songs through downloadable content.
If you'd like to read more about Harmonix's ambitions and legacy, check out this old feature I wrote in 2013 about how Harmonix sparked a DLC revolution with Rock Band. For more on the future of Harmonix under Epic Games, check out our interview with Harmonix founder and head Alex Rigopolous here.
What are your thoughts on this announcement? Do you still buy Rock Band DLC or even play the game? How many DLC songs do you own? Sound off in the comments below!
Nintendo has announced a release date for Splatoon 3’s Side Order DLC.
January 25 will be the last day that Harmonix releases new DLC songs for Rock Band 4, its music/rhythm game that it's supported with new content for nearly a decade. Launching five years after Rock Band 3, Rock Band 4 came out at a time when the music/rhythm game craze had largely passed. While it failed to generate nearly as much interest as its predecessors, it did still manage to find some success and a dedicated fanbase.
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.
Harmonix has announced that it is ending support for Rock Band 4 after eight years of DLC and moving its attention towards Fortnite Festival, calling it "the place to be".
Harmonix, the team behind Rock Band 4, has announced that the game is set to release its final DLC next week on January 25. After over 8 years of weekly releases, Harmonix shared in a blog post that this will be the final DLC release for the Rock Band 4 era as the studio shifts its attention toward other rhythm action games — like Fortnite Festival.
After eight years of weekly releases, Rock Band 4's last dollop of song DLC will arrive next Thursday, 25th January, developer Harmonix has announced.
Rock Band 4’s weekly song DLC release will be coming to an end on January 25th, bringing an end to a service that has been running for 8 years. According to Harmonix, over 3000 songs have been added to the Rock Band 4 catalogue. Nothing else will stop for the game with all other live services continuing including Rivals and online play.
Harmonix revealed that the January 25 DLC tracks for Rock Band 4 will be the final new ones added to the game.
It’s the end of an era. A really, really impressive era. After over eight years of continual releases, Harmonix announced that the final DLC for Rock Band 4 will be dropped next week.
The final songs for Rock Band 4 will be released next week, ending an eight-year streak of weekly DLC releases for the rhythm game, developer Harmonix announced Wednesday. The studio’s future work will come to Fortnite Festival, the Rock Band-like game mode for Fortnite that launched in December.
Harmonix will bring to an end eight years of weekly Rock Band 4 DLC updates next week.
After 16 years worth of DLC releases totalling 2,779 songs, Harmonix has confirmed that Rock Band DLC is finally coming to an end as the studio continues its transition to Fortnite Festival.