Between Fortnite propensity to big name concerts and Epic’s purchase of Harmonix two years ago, the inclusion of some sort of music creation feature in the game was inevitable. What Epic is releasing today is actually much grander: a brand new mode called Fortnite Festival, a social space where players can team up to perform their favorite songs or jam together on new mixes.
There are two options, or stages, for users to play in the new mode. The main stage, or championship stage, is essentially the Rock band experience recreated inside Fortnite. You will form a group with friends and choose a song to perform. Then you play the song using the standard music playing format where notes slide down vertical bars, pressing the correct button when the note reaches the bottom. Players can of course hear the song as they play it, which can be embarrassing if you’re not very good. Each artist earns points, which in turn leads to XP and character progression in the greater Fortnite ecosystem.
While the main stage may seem dated to anyone who was around during the zenith of music gaming in the 2000s, the jam stage takes inspiration from Harmonix’s more recent (and less popular) mixing titles, Dropmix And Fusing Unit. Although both of these games had competitive modes, they were much more fun as music-making toys, where players could simply mix together different parts of popular songs and see what came out. Jamming at Fortnite Festival is pretty much that, but collaborative.
When you first jump into a jam, your avatar will be in a virtual world filled with stages, clubs, and green spaces. It looks like an amusement park, similar to Disney World’s long-gone Pleasure Island. Despite the way the world looks, you don’t need to go on stage to play music, you can start playing wherever you want by pulling the emote wheel. The actions here have been replaced with song options. Simply choose a song and an instrument and your character will start playing. It’s not about the whole song, but rather about a particular piece. To put together something more complete, you need to collaborate with other players.
Playing with other players is incredibly simple. All you have to do is walk up to someone already playing (indicated by a wavy circle) and activate your own emote wheel. The system will automatically mix the two songs, regardless of genre or style. You want to add the vocals of “Mr.” from The Killers. Brightside” to the synth of “Gangnam Style? Go ahead and don’t be surprised when someone else covers the beat to The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights.”
Instruments can be swapped on the fly, and the key and tempo can also be changed to make a slow song fast or vice versa. There’s plenty of room for creativity here, as well as cacophony as the levels fill up.
While the Fortnite Festival relies heavily on Dropmix And Fusing Unit it has one key advantage over those two titles that could lead to success where its predecessors failed: it’s free. The three new Fortnite modes will be free, but Festival stands out because it relies heavily on licensed music. One of the biggest barriers to entry into music gaming has always been additional costs, especially those for song packs. $2 for your favorite Nirvana or Bad Bunny tracks may not seem like a lot at first, but it adds up, and any cost online can be insurmountable for a child without a credit card. The fact that it’s a music game that anyone can download for free on their computer, console or mobile device without being bombarded with ads means that it has the potential to make music games popular again .
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fortnite-festival-tries-to-bring-back-the-heyday-of-music-gaming-153624729.html?src= rss
