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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.
"After over eight years of weekly Rock Band 4 DLC releases, we’re here to let you know that January 25 will be the last DLC release of the RB4 era," product manager Daniel Sussman explains in the announcement. "All other live services will continue as normal, including Rivals seasons, online play, and everything else." You won't be losing access to any purchased songs, either, Sussman says: "To be very clear, you can play the songs you own within Rock Band 4 for as long as you like."
While Rock Band 4 has been getting DLC since 2015, the downloadable song train goes all the way back to the original game in 2007. A two-year hiatus in DLC releases from 2013 to 2015 was the only break in this regular content drop, and since Rock Band 4 was released in October 2015, new songs have been made available for purchase every single week. With all the old songs carrying forward between games, this is one of the most impressive displays of post-launch support in gaming history.
Harmonix was purchased by Epic Games in 2021, developing Fortnite Festival as part of Epic's push to make Fortnite a multi-game destination. But still the Rock Band DLC did not slow down. Now that Fortnite Festival is finally out, however, it seems Harmonix is turning its full energy over to that project.
"Looking ahead, the Harmonix team has been hard at work over the last two years to develop Fortnite Festival, which brings rhythm action gaming (and more) to the Fortnite ecosystem," Sussman explains in the announcement. "It’s free to play, we have a rotating selection of songs that you can play (for free) anytime. If you are a fan of the rhythm game category, Fortnite Festival is the place to be; and with support for RB4 instruments coming, this is not the time to hang up your guitars just yet."
We don't yet know what form that Fortnite Festival guitar controller support will take, but it's been teased since launch and it seems like the logical next step for Harmonix to take. That might be small comfort to the Rock Band faithful who have invested thousands of dollars into their music libraries over the years, but either way, the legendary rhythm series has had one heck of a run.
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