Harmonix has announced the return of Rock Band with Rock Band 4, the first new installment in the critically acclaimed music game series in five years, and the first to be released on the latest generation of gaming consoles.
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“With Rock Band 4, we’re doubling down on the energy and excitement of playing music live with your friends,” says Harmonix Chief Executive Officer Steve Janiak in a press release. “Focusing on the core experience that our fans have told us they love allows us to evolve established gameplay in meaningful ways that we can’t wait to share with everyone later this year.”
“We couldn’t be happier to be working with Harmonix and help bring the band back together for the launch of Rock Band 4,” added Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz. “Harmonix possesses unrivalled passion and vision for music gaming and we can’t wait to introduce the next generation music platform to passionate gamers.”
Harmonix promises more details on the game in May, but they did say that Rock Band 4 will support the franchise’s archive of downloadable content, which includes over 2000 songs from more than 500 artists.
“Since the beginning, we’ve called Rock Band a music platform. Players responded by downloading hundreds of their favorite tracks, and building a massive library of playable music,” says Rock Band 4 Product Manager Daniel Sussman. “It’s important for us to respect those purchases and enable our fans to bring that content over to the Rock Band platform on new generation consoles.”
To celebrate the announcement, Harmonix is making “I Still Believe,” a track off of Frank Turner’s Rock & Roll EP, availableย as a free download for Rock Band 3 and Rock Band Blitz for today only, and the song will be compatibleย with Rock Band 4 when the game ships later in 2015.
