Fortnite Festival

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Fortnite Festival
Season 1 Promotional artwork
Developer(s)Harmonix
Publisher(s)Epic Games
SeriesFortnite
EngineUnreal Engine 5
Platform(s)
ReleaseDecember 9, 2023
Genre(s)Rhythm
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Fortnite Festival is a 2023 rhythm game developed by Harmonix and published by Epic Games. Featuring similar gameplay to the Rock Band series, players perform a song while attempting to get a high score based on their performance. A variety of songs can be chosen from, with a selection being available for free daily, with an option to purchase the song outright being available as well. The game was released in December 2023, and can be accessed via the Fortnite launcher. Fortnite Festival received mixed reviews from critics, with criticism toward the price of songs as well as the gameplay.

Gameplay[edit]

Gameplay of Fortnite Festival on expert difficulty

Fortnite Festival is a rhythm video game accessible via the Fortnite launcher.[1] The game features two modes, the "main stage" and the "jam stage." On the main stage, a group of players will choose a song and attempt to time button inputs correctly to the notes of the chosen song, with the players score and combo multiplier increasing each input one gets correct.[2] The player is able to choose which aspect of the song they want to perform, with the options being between drums, lead (either guitar or keytar), bass, and vocals. The player can also choose one of four difficulty options, ranging from easy to expert.[3][4] While the other difficulties only use four button inputs for notes, the expert difficulty uses five.[3] After correctly playing specially marked sections of each track, the player is granted "overdrive power", which increases their score multiplier further. These multipliers can be stacked with each other if the other players performing the song use them at the same time.[2] In the "jam stage", players are able to make mashups of several different different songs into one, with the tempo and key of each track being adjustable.[5]

A variety of songs are featured in Fortnite Festival, with most of them being composed by well known artists such as Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar and Weezer.[5][6] While a rotating selection of daily free songs are provided to the player, the player also has the option to purchase a song with V-Bucks, Fortnite's in-game currency. Each song has a price of 500 V-Bucks, equivalent to $4.50.[4][5] Fortnite Festival also features its own battle pass, known as the Festival Pass, allowing players to unlock additional songs and cosmetics.[7]

Seasons[edit]

Season Period Featured Artist
Season 1 ("Opening Night") December 2023 – February 2024 The Weeknd
Season 2 ("Unlock Your Talent") February 2024 – April 2024 Lady Gaga
Season 3 April 2024 – June 2024 Billie Eilish

Development and release[edit]

Fortnite Festival was released on December 9, 2023, as part of Epic's goal expand Fortnite with additional Experiences, which included Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing.[1] Fortnite Festival is developed by Harmonix, the developers of the Rock Band series.[2] According to Harmonix' CEO Alex Rigopolous, their goal was to create a free-to-play music game available to the millions of players of Fortnite. To achieve this, they developed the means to have the full library of songs available in game freely available in a manner that was favorable to music publishers to build out the music library quickly.[8] Alongside the Festival Stage and Jam Stage, Harmonix also developed tools called the Patchwork system that could be used within the Fortnite Creative modes or in other Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) applications to allow creators to incorporate dynamic music systems into their creations.[8]

Support for video game controllers modeled after instruments is currently being worked on.[1] Performance Designed Products (PDP), which previously had supplied instrument controllers for Rock Band 4, announced a new controller, the PDP Riffmaster, to be released in April 2024. The Riffmaster will have two versions, one compatible for the PlayStation, and another for the Xbox consoles. Both versions will be compatible with previous rhythm games like Rock Band as well as Fortnite Festival.[9] With the start of Season 3 in late April 2024, Festival was updated to support the Riffmaster and selected other instrument controllers, along with updating all past and future songs to include support for lead and bass parts that utilize the features of these controllers, including hammer-on and pull-offs similar to Rock Band.[10]

Reception[edit]

Fortnite Festival received generally mixed opinions from critics upon release. IGN's Luke Reilly gave the game a 4/10, criticizing the price of in-game songs, as well as the game not allowing players to see how others were performing, summarizing the gameplay as "isolating."[4] Digital Trends' Giovanni Colantonio and PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor echoed similar thoughts on the price of in-game songs.[3][5] Taylor additionally criticized the gameplay, comparing it to previous games developed by Harmonix and describing it as "awfully barebones."[3] Bailey Dustin of GamesRadar+ pointed out a lack of content as well.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c LeBlanc, Wesley. "Fortnite Festival Season 1 Is Live, Epic Confirms Rock Band Controller Support Coming". Game Informer. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  2. ^ a b c d Bailey, Dustin (2023-12-09). "Fortnite Festival looks like the future for the Rock Band devs, and that might not be a bad thing". gamesradar. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  3. ^ a b c d Taylor, Mollie (2023-12-18). "What the hell Harmonix, you definitely could have done something better than Fortnite Festival". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  4. ^ a b c Reilly, Luke (2023-12-15). "Fortnite Festival Review". IGN. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  5. ^ a b c d "Fortnite Festival isn't the Rock Band comeback I hoped for". Digital Trends. 2023-12-09. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  6. ^ Dev, Siddhanth (2023-12-24). "10 Best Songs In Fortnite Festival". TheGamer. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  7. ^ Webster, Andrew (2023-12-09). "Fortnite Festival is Rock Band without the plastic instruments". The Verge. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  8. ^ a b Hester, Blake (December 26, 2023). "The Head Of Harmonix Talks About The Future Of Fortnite, The Metaverse, And Music". Game Informer. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  9. ^ Lyles, Taylor (January 31, 2024). "PDP's New Wireless Guitar Controller Works With Rock Band 4 and, Eventually, Fortnite Festival". IGN. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  10. ^ https://www.ign.com/articles/fortnite-festival-finally-adds-support-for-rock-band-4-and-pdp-riffmaster-guitar-controllers
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