Remember the "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" series of games? The popular harmony-based series of games had a large fanbase among those who played outside of the gaming community. While the games did well on the Xbox and Playstation 3, the fake-instrument game trend eventually died off, and dance games became the games to play. Why? It's unclear.
However, Harmonix isn't finished with their "Rock Band" series. During their presentation at Game Developer's Conference, Harmonix announced that they were going to release the next rendition of the series, called "Rock Band 4," this Fall. The game will be available on the Xbox One and Playstation 4.
But why did Harmonix stop making "Rock Band"? Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopolos said it was because their product was too expensive.
"We were selling the most expensive videogame in the world into a recession.....I also think that we didn't deliver sufficient innovation, or the right kind of innovation, over that period of time," Rigopolos said.
Now that the recession is over and gaming sales numbers are rising, Harmonix is looking to bring "Rock Band" back and take it to the next level. Rock Band lead developer Daniel Sussman didn't go into too many details about how Harmonix would improve the game. However, he did mention two particular updates that he hoped to implement. First, Sussman wants to give players incentive to pay attention to the rest of their team.
"If you think about Rock Band as a multiplayer game, in fact it's kind of four single-player games that people are coincidentally playing at the same time," he said. "There's not a lot of rich interplay or awareness from one person to the next.......I think there's a lot of things we can do in the game to incentivize you to pay attention to what everyone else is doing."
Sussman also wants to "allow for some expression for the player" while still sticking to the core of the song.
Sussman also noted that players who have bought DLCs for "Rock Band 3" will have their music transferred to "Rock Band 4". However, it appears that this only applies if players are transitioning between similar consoles (IE Xbox 360 to Xbox One).
Harmonix hopes to reveal more details about "Rock Band 4" during their presentation at E3.
