Fuser developer Harmonix is releasing its largest batch of new content to date for the music-mixing video game today with the Headliner Spotlight update, and that includes a number of different adjustments and additions, but most notably, the new Diamond Stage. The Diamond Stage is essentially a way for players to headline a specific stage that allows 250 folks to watch and interact — in real-time — as they show off exactly what they can do.
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And that’s just in the actual game itself. In addition to the in-game version of the stage, a new dedicated Fuser Twitch channel will start streaming the Diamond Stage 24 hours a day this week. In order to reserve a primetime slot on the Diamond Stage, players must spend Diamonds, which can be earned through participating in events through playing or voting in addition to simply working through the single-player campaign or freestyle and multiplayer modes. For those not necessarily interested in performing on the Diamond Stage, a new in-game Diamond Shop will allow them to pick up various customization options for their DJs in addition to new tracks.
“I think there’s a critical mass of players who are awesome at the game and are doing really creative things with the Fuser toolkit,” says Daniel Sussman, the Fuser project director at Harmonix, when asked about why now is the right time for the Diamond Stage, “and I think … and I’m not talking about five or six people. There are a lot of people who are just crushing it with thinking about composition and dynamics and really getting into the music of it all. And giving those players the opportunity to really strut their stuff.”
Additionally, DJ Profiles have been improved as well as the Recommendation Engine, which should allow folks to find mixes more to their liking within the game itself. Twitch Drops have also been integrated, though it is unclear exactly how Harmonix intends to use them just yet beyond “it exists” and “people can earn stuff by watching other people play on Twitch.” For now, the plans seems to be to run regular campaigns on the new dedicated Diamond Stage channel.
“One of the things that we’re trying to design around is that I want the viewing experience in-game to be more dynamic, more interactive than the viewing experience on Twitch,” says Sussman. “On Twitch, you have chat, you’re sort of in the Twitch space, but nothing you do is really hitting performer. In the game, as a spectator, you can fire off emojis, and the performer sees those, right? You can make requests. The performer sees those and can choose to acknowledge or ignore. So there are ways for the in-game spectators to have that direct line to the performer, that are not there on Twitch.”
As noted above, Fuser‘s Headliner Spotlight update, which includes the Diamond Stage, is live as of today. The music-mixing video game is currently available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Fuser right here.
What do you think about Fuser‘s new big update? Are you interested in tackling the Diamond Stage? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!
