Fortnite Fest is a rock band without the plastic instruments

What that means is that you’ll be hitting notes with popular songs, but instead of doing it on a toy guitar or drum kit, you’re using a game controller or mouse and keyboard. The basic flow is identical, though: the notes move down the track, and you have to press (or hold) the corresponding button in time to the beat. I played some of the songs earlier this week, along with other members of the press, and it felt like a simplified version of Harmonix’s more popular games. Of course, some were added fortnite Twists: You can choose an avatar like Peely the banana and you can emote during certain sections of the songs.

According to Alex Rigopoulos of Harmonix, the plan is treatment Fortnite Festival Like the live service game, which will likely grow very large over time.

“The modes we’re launching this week – you can think of it as the opening act for it festivalthere’s more to come – it takes familiar and beloved elements from our previous games, but introduces them to the world in this social context fortnite, “This has never been done before,” he told me. “In particular, festival It will be the first time a full AAA music experience has been offered in a free-to-play format. So just absolute access and complete absence of social contact is really unprecedented, and we can’t do it anywhere else but fortnite“.

The game also has its own battle pass-like system, called the Festival Pass, where players can pay to unlock songs and cosmetic items – including the Weeknd’s skin.

addition Fortnite Festival It makes a lot of sense, given how much emphasis there is on the music fortnite. There are emotes, big in-game concerts – the latest featuring Eminem – and the ability for players to listen to radio stations while driving around the battle royale map. For Rigopoulos, the ultimate goal is to “make music experiences permeate the ecosystem.” As part of that, this update extends beyond launch festival.

If you have ever played Harmonix games like Fuser or DropmixThe other addition will look familiar. These games break songs into parts and allow players to combine them together to create something new, for example, singing a Weeknd song with guitar from Fall Out Boy. fortnite It is getting something similar along festival. It’s called the jam system, and it allows players to get close (virtually) to each other and start placing track items inside the circle. If you choose drums, for example, your character will start making an emotional expression in front of the drum kit. The same applies to singing and other instruments. When a band does that, it’s like a little jam session with fortnite Characters.

Sessions are not just part of Fortnite Festival. “It’s playable in the battle royale game, and will soon be playable throughout the ecosystem,” Rigopoulos says. “This is something we will double down and expand over time.”