Marking the much-anticipated return of online play to Rock Band, Rivals mode also represents the most dramatic shift to the Rock Band meta game since the franchise’s introduction in 2007. In Rivals Mode, players band together to form crews of up to ten people to take on other crews around the world in a structured and ongoing series of uniquely themed gameplay challenges. At the beginning of each challenge, crews will be assigned to one of six tiers. When a challenge ends, the best crews will ascend to a new tier, while under-performing crews will face demotion. As crews get promoted they’ll earn badges and face stiffer competition in their quest to earn their place amongst the elite in the highest tier - Bloodstone.

Rock Band Rivals challenges are made up of two distinct gameplay elements - Weekly Challenge Songs and Spotlight Songs. Crews looking to climb the leaderboard will need to focus on both if they want to succeed. Performance in weekly challenges is determined by the overall score earned by all crew members while playing qualifying songs. For example, in the challenge “I Want to Know What Love Is,” playing songs and artists with the word “love” in them will contribute to your crew’s Rivals score for the week. Spotlight Songs are an opportunity for Rock Band’s best players to show their stuff. Here, a crew’s Rivals score is determined by the single best performance achieved by the crew as a whole for each instrument. Balanced crews featuring elite singers, guitarists, bassists and drummers will have an advantage.

As part of the year-long 10th anniversary celebration, Harmonix will be making some of the series’ most popular on-disc tracks available for purchase as DLC throughout the year. The festivities kick off when the following tracks become available on both Xbox One and PS4 later this month for $1.99 per track:

• The All-American Rejects – “Swing, Swing” (Appeared on Lego Rock Band)
• Blue Öyster Cult – “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” (Appeared on Rock Band)
• Kansas – “Carry On Wayward Son” (Appeared on Rock Band 2)

Starting off the month’s DLC is “More Metal Pack 01”, the first of three packs to be released this month. The following songs will be available Thursday, January 5, as part of the More Metal Pack 01 on both Xbox One and PlayStation®4 for $5.49 or $1.99 per track:

• Avenged Sevenfold – “The Stage”
• Megadeth – “Trust”
• Slipknot – “Dead Memories”

“The Stage” by Avenged Sevenfold starts off our newest DLC pack. A whopping eight and a half minutes long, “The Stage” is a force to be reckoned with. With devil horn difficulty on both drums and guitar, this is a Metal-lover’s dream. There is an extremely challenging intro for drums – we recommend getting into Practice Mode to nail those double kicks down. There’s plenty of tricky guitar parts outside of the song’s three guitar solos that will also need some special attention to perfect.

The next song in the More Metal Pack 01 is “Trust” by Megadeth. Peaking at #5, the Grammy-nominated “Trust” would become the bands highest charting Billboard Mainstream Rock single.  Another track in the pack with three shredding guitar solos, “Trust” will have plenty of movement throughout the tune for guitarists and their bandmates. Be careful in the second guitar solo, as the difficulty spikes for that one.

Rounding out our Metal-focused DLC is Slipknot’s “Dead Memories”. Culled from their platinum-selling album All Hope Is Gone, “Dead Memories” has multiple gameplay highlights. Drummers should take note of that tricky drum pattern during the bridge of this song. And, for you Pro Drummers out there, the chart is notably different for you due to a healthy mixing of toms and cymbals at the same time. Cymbals can really make all the difference!

The full list of songs coming to the Rock Band 4 DLC library this month is as follows:

• The All-American Rejects – “Swing, Swing”
• Avenged Sevenfold – “The Stage”
• Blue Öyster Cult – “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”
• Fun. – “Some Nights”
• Kansas – “Carry On Wayward Son”
• Lady Gaga – “Applause”
• Lady Gaga – “A-YO”
• Lady Gaga – “The Edge of Glory”
• Megadeth – “Trust”
• OMI – “Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix)
• Slipknot – “Dead Memories”
• Toto – “Hold the Line”