Fortnite Festival is resurrecting Rock Band with local co-op multiplayer
Fortnite Festival has been around for a little while, but there’s one thing this online Rock Band-alike has been missing, and that’s local co-op multiplayer. One of the joys of old-school Guitar Hero and Rock Band was playing alongside others, whether that was on a guitar, drum kit or microphone. Fortnite Festival’s new update is set to bring that experience back.
From January 14th, Fortnite Festival will support local co-op multiplayer, both using joypads and supported instruments, as spotted by Eurogamer. Fortnite Festival supports the use of some old Rock Band 4 instruments and there are new, third party devices too. So you can break out the plastic intruments and jam with your friends, old-school style.
The one snag is that you’ll still need to be online and in Fortnite Festival. Epic isn’t adding an offline mode. There are, however, unofficial Guitar Hero / Rock Band style PC games that don’t require a connection, such as Clone Hero. We’re certainly glad to see companies putting out new instruments, such as the PDP Riffmaster. Because, while they’re not cheap, it beats poking through second hand shops for a used guitar, only to find it’s missing the dongle.
It’s not just that Fortnite Festival is aping Rock Band, though. Epic actually owns Harmonix, the developer of Rock Band 4. Harmonix ended support for that game earlier this year and has transferred its efforts to supporting Fortnite Festival.
Guitar Hero, on the other hand? We doubt we’ll see a similar resurrection. Activision did bring it back as Guitar Hero Live, back in 2015, and we absolutely loved it. But it didn’t sell particularly well and its online mode was shut down in 2018. Given that Harmonix also developed the first two Guitar Hero games, Fortnite Festival should be a more than acceptable substitute.
