Harmonix is teaming up with Mad Catz to bring Rock Band 4 to PS4 and Xbox One, and brings the franchise to a new generation of consoles, focusing on the features and gameplay that people love, and expanding the franchise in innovative ways that were informed by how fans play and what they want.  

In addition to a killer on-disc soundtrack, Rock Band 4 will support over 2000 tracks released since the 2007 launch of the original Rock Band, accounting for more than 500 of rock music’s most legendary artists.

Players who’ve purchased or downloaded playable tracks on last-generation consoles will be able to download and play those tracks on their new platforms at no additional charge. Hundreds of tracks will be available at launch, with more back catalog music – and new tracks – to be added regularly after launch.

The Post-Launch Program officially kicks off with its first major feature update on December 8th for Xbox One and PS4.

“Since we announced back in March, Harmonix has been saying Rock Band 4 will be the only Rock Band game for this console generation. We are thrilled to unveil details of our plan today as the realization of that promise,” explained Harmonix CEO Steve Janiak.

The post-launch program calls for monthly updates of varying scopes. These will be a mix of smaller releases focusing on bug fixing and stability improvements and larger updates adding new types of content and full-fledged features. Harmonix will engage in an open dialog with its community and use this feedback to help determine the future direction of the franchise.

The first update in the program will be offered for free and is scheduled to hit the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on December 8th. It focuses mostly on competitive and social features, including an entirely new online competitive system called “Score Challenges” which utilizes a live activity feed that shows users what their friends are playing, and allows them to compete with each other for high scores on songs.

“This first feature update should give our players a taste of what’s to come as Rock Band 4 evolves over the next year and beyond. All of us on the team are excited to develop and support the game in collaboration with our amazingly creative community.” added Rock Band 4 product manager, Daniel Sussman.

Features:

• Score challenge features – This is a whole suite of features that is designed to leverage the competitive heart of the game:
  • In-game notifications of leaderboard events: Find out at the moment you pass a friend’s score with an all-new in-song indicator.
  • Activity feed: This is a main menu log of your leaderboard events and that also allows you to quickly jump to a track to regain your dominance.
  • Taunt system from the results screen: Let your friends know you beat their score by sending them a selectable randomized Taunt message. This taunt will appear in his or her Activity Feed.
• Improved Calibration – thanks to your feedback, we’ve implemented some significant improvements. PLEASE NOTE that these changes require you to recalibrate.
• Variable Breakneck Speed – One of the most requested features from the hardcore competitive community, Variable Breakneck Speed will allow players to individually set the Breakneck Speed of their tracks for the first time in a Rock Band title – up to 2.5X this time!
• Full Combo Recognition & Indicator – The “Full Combo” (a perfect streak, no notes missed or additional strums/hits from start to finish) is one of the competitive player’s greatest achievements. Rock Band games haven’t kept track of this impressive feat in the past, and that all changes with this update. The game will now celebrate and track your FC success, and a subtle new in-song indicator will allow you to know if you’re still on track for an FC or if you’ve broken your streak. We also now indicate FC runs on the leaderboards.
• More Song Results details – leaderboard info, plus detailed gameplay statistics will now be shown on the song results screen.
• Player Stats – Want to know where you stack against your friends online? Access this new Player Stats screen from anywhere in the game to get a detailed overview of your complete Rock Band gameplay statistics, including cumulative scores, stars, and more.
• New Items in the Rock Shop – we’ve got a handful of new assets in the Rock Shop, including one that celebrates a recent (and very awesome) game launch from a studio that we love.
• Auto-kick mode – One of the most requested Accessibility features, this toggle will allow you to play drum parts by hitting the drum pads only while we automatically hit kick drum notes. This will be available as a toggle in the Options menu.

Bug fixes:

• Packs and Albums in the XB1 in-game store are back in the store and contain content.
• Fix to prevent hitches for PlayStation 4 players with 2000 Friends.
• Leaderboards no longer mix player scores and percentages from different performances and instead show only the info for the single performance with the highest score.
• Game no longer crashes when the vocalist joins a song that doesn’t have a vocal part.
• Band History stats now list the correct total number of Rock Shop items.
• Improvements to microphone lag.
• Improvements to tambourine hit sensitivity.
• Adjustments to track transparency.

We’ve still got a few surprises in store, including a new gameplay mode that we’re really psyched about. We’ll be telling you about it as we get closer to December 8th.

With the details on our first major update out of the way, here’s some insight into our long-term plans:

• We are planning for monthly updates of varying sizes – some of these updates will contain bug fixes and performance improvements, others will include new features.
• Our backlog is comprised of:
  • Features brand new to the Rock Band platform.
  • Features that have appeared in previous Rock Band games
  • Stability improvements.
• We are paying VERY close attention to the feedback from our community channels (the Rock Band forums, social media, etc.). Please continue to tell us what you care about! What do you like? What do you NOT like? What’s missing? We’re listening – your comments impact our priorities in a major way.
• We’re working on some tools to provide visibility into our long-term development plans. We want to keep you informed about what we’re up to!