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.

Harmonix has teamed up with The Record Co. – a non-profit music incubator with a mission to build a sustainable, nationally-recognized music scene in Boston – to bring 11 free songs from up-and-coming Boston bands to owners of Rock Band Rivals via a March content update. This new collection brings the included library of songs available to Rock Band Rivals owners to 89, including 65 songs from the Rock Band 4 soundtrack and 24 as part of the Rivals upgrade.

“Harmonix is thrilled to be supporting The Record Co. with this release of music from their Beast Compilation album,” said Daniel Sussman, Rock Band product manager. “The Boston music scene has some amazing talent and we 100% believe in The Record Co.’s mission. Rock Band has long featured indie artists and it’s a total treat for us to use the Rock Band platform to introduce great independent music to our audience.”

Rock Band DLC in March kicks off with a Rock Band Rewind track from Rock Band 2 in “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit and the hit song “Outside” by Staind. These great songs will be available on both Xbox One and PS4 this Thursday for $1.99 per track:

• Lit – “My Own Worst Enemy”
• Staind – “Outside”

The full list of tracks from The Record Co. coming to Rivals owners for free this month is as follows:

• Animal Flag – “Sink”
• Bent Knee – “These Hands”
• Black Beach – “No Place For Me”
• Creaturos – “History Repeats”
• Dutch ReBelle – “RudeBoys”
• Julie Rhodes – “Hurry Up (& Wait For You)”
• Littlefoot – “Casablanca”
• Michael Christmas – “Cross That Line”
• Ruby Rose Fox – “Skydiver”
• STL GLD – “Good”
• Tigerman WOAH – “Alone Time”