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.

Hey Rock Banderinos,

We’ve got some good news to share, news that you’ve been patiently waiting a while to hear. You may have heard that some new consoles are coming out this November, about a month from now in fact, and with them comes some new backwards compatibility features. To get right to the point:

Rock Band 4 and all DLC will work on the next generation consoles day 1. We believe previously supported instruments should work as expected. See below for a full list of what was tested.

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

Our team has been diligently testing a bunch of old gear on the new systems to make sure everything works exactly as it does today. When you break open those crisp new consoles, you should be able to connect your existing, compatible peripherals and play Rock Band 4 right out of the box.

What about my E-Kit and Adapters?

We have also confirmed that all those various adapters on the Xbox side work, so current e-kit drummers and Legacy Wireless players should all be set day 1.

Will all of my DLC and save data transition over?

All DLC currently available for download will also work on new consoles. No messy generation transition this time, it’s the same DLC!

Save data can transfer over on both consoles. If you're playing on Xbox and have saved on the cloud recently, it'll do so automatically! On PlayStation®, you can use a few methods, like cloud saves for PlayStation Plus members, or hard drive transfers, to get the data from your current console to your new one.

Let me hear about those sweet, sweet load times.

You'll notice a pretty sizable performance increase on both consoles, especially with load times. Getting into gameplay has never been faster, even with large library sizes! Both the new Xbox and PlayStation consoles are on par with each other when it comes to load times. Impressive across the board.

I’m getting a next-gen console, but my friend is not. Can I still play with them?

Online Multiplayer will also function across generations within their console family. So, Xbox Series X/S players will be able to play online with Xbox One players and vice versa, same on PlayStation 5 with PlayStation 4 players.

We hope to continue support for Rock Band 4 for the foreseeable future! Thank you for your continued dedication and passion to the series, we’re so happy to be able to bring you this good news ahead of this next-gen launch.

Anything else we need to know to get started?

On the PlayStation 5, there's a microphone in the controller, and the console defaults to that microphone, which Rock Band 4 recognizes. If you want to use a regular USB mic, you'll have to change that in your console settings. Also, just as a heads up, any USB mic should still work.

Also on PlayStation 5, if you're using the PlayStation 4 era instruments (Mad Catz/PDP guitars and drums), you connect them to the console the same way you did on the PlayStation 4 - via the Bluetooth accessories spot in the options menu.

For reference, here is the full list of instrument controllers we tested. This is not a comprehensive list. Generally, if it worked on Rock Band 4 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, it should work on next-gen.

• Mad Catz RB4 Fender™ Stratocaster™ Guitar (Xbox)
• Mad Catz RB4 Drums (Xbox)
• PDP RB4 Fender Jaguar™ Guitar (Xbox)
• PDP RB4 Drums (Xbox)
• Mad Catz RB4 Fender Stratocaster Guitar (PS4)
• Mad Catz RB4 Drums (PS4)
• PDP RB4 Fender Jaguar Guitar (PS4)
• PDP RB4 Drums (PS4)
• Mad Catz RB3 Fender Stratocaster Guitar (Xbox, Mad Catz Wireless Legacy Adapter required)
• Mad Catz The Beatles™: Rock Band Gretsch™ Duo-Jet™ Guitar (Xbox, Mad Catz Wireless Legacy Adapter required)
• Mad Catz RB3 Drums (Xbox, Mad Catz Wireless Legacy Adapter required)
• Mad Catz RB2 Fender Stratocaster Guitar (Xbox, Mad Catz Wireless Legacy Adapter required)
• ION® Drum Rocker (Xbox, PDP Wired Legacy Adapter required)
• Mad Catz RB3 Fender Stratocaster Guitar (PS3, Dongle required)
• Mad Catz RB3 Drums (PS3, Dongle required)
• Mad Catz RB2 Drums (PS3, Dongle required)
• Mad Catz RB2 Fender Stratocaster Guitar (PS3, Dongle required)
• ION Drum Rocker (PS3)