That means you hit notes to popular songs, but instead of doing it on a toy guitar or drum kit, you use a game controller or mouse and keyboard. However, the basic flow is identical: notes move down a path and you have to press (or hold) the corresponding button at the right beat. I played a few songs earlier this week, along with other members of the press, and it felt like a streamlined version of Harmonix’s most popular games. Of course some more have been added Fortnite twists: you choose an avatar like Peely the banana and can make emos during certain parts of the songs.
According to Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix, the plan is to treat Fortnite Festival as a live service game, one that could potentially become very big over time.
“The modes we are launching this week can be seen as the opening act of Festivalthere’s more to come: they take well-known and beloved elements from our previous games, but present them to the world in this social context of Fortnite, which has never been done before,” he told me. “And especially, Festival will mark the first time a full-fledged AAA music experience is offered in a free-to-play format. So just the reach and the total absence of social friction is really unprecedented, and we couldn’t do it anywhere else Fortnite.”
The game also has its own battle pass-like system called the Festival Pass, where players can pay to unlock songs and cosmetics, including a Weeknd skin.
The addition of Fortnite Festival makes a lot of sense, given the focus on music Fortnite. There are the emotes, big in-game concerts – the most recent featuring Eminem – and the ability for players to listen to radio stations while driving around the battle royale map. For Rigopulos, the ultimate goal is to “bring musical experiences into the ecosystem.” And as part of that, this update goes beyond the launch of Festival.
If you’ve ever played Harmonix games like Fuser or Licorice mix, the other addition will seem familiar. Those games broke songs into pieces and let players put them together to create something new — for example, the vocals of a Weeknd song with Fall Out Boy’s guitar. Fortnite gets something similar next to it Festival. Called the jam system, it lets players get close (virtually) to each other and lay out elements of a song within a circle. For example, if you choose the drums, your character will start emoteing for a drum kit. The same goes for vocals and other instruments. When a team does it, it’s like a little jam session Fortnite characters.
The sessions are not just part of that Fortnite Festival. “It’s playable in Battle Royale, and soon it will be playable across the entire ecosystem,” says Rigopulos. “That’s something we’ll double down on and expand over time.”