Good stuff for the hardcore community
Rock Band 4 launched in a state that felt kind of bare bones. Several features were cut from past games in favor of just getting you to simulate playing music in your living room again. A lot of that’s getting added after the fact in a “better late than never” December update.
The patch, which goes live on December 8, was just recently detailed on Harmonix’s site. Notable features included are: leaderboard and friend challenging, more detailed song results, in-depth statistics covering your entire time playing the game, improved calibration, more items in the Rock Shop, a mode that automatically plays the drum’s kick pedal for you, the ability to manually set the breakneck speed (first time ever in a Rock Band title), and a full combo tracker that marks which songs have been FC’d and also provides an in-song indicator to signify if your combo has been broken.
As could be predicted, this update isn’t all about new features. It’s about squashing bugs too. Harmonix outlines several little fixes it’s making so players don’t experience any hiccups. Improvements to microphone lag and tambourine sensitivity are two of the more remarkable examples.
Harmonix also says that it has a new gameplay mode that will release on December 8. But, it’s not talking about that yet. The developer’s also planning monthly updates for the foreseeable future. First thing’s first, and that’s shipping this monumental patch.
On top of all the reasons listed already that make this update significant, it’s also when the tracks from Rock Band 3 will be able to be imported into Rock Band 4. A month ago, Harmonix was going to try to make it happen. Turns out it was successful.
Although it wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the post on Harmonix’s site, product manager Eric Pope told us today that everything’s a go with Rock Band 3. According to him, it’ll be available “on or around December 8;” He says that “It can sometimes vary by a couple of days based on first party submission dependencies.”
Looking forward, Pope doesn’t yet have a time-table for when other Rock Band games might be available to import to Rock Band 4. “Timing is still to be determined on other exports, but we’ll post an update as soon as we have one,” Pope says. In the meantime, players will have Rock Band 3 songs to placate them and they’ll have a whole bunch of new features to add even more depth.
Details Revealed: Rock Band 4 December Update and Ongoing Live Program [Harmonix]
