Rock Band 4 Revisited

Rock Band 4 was the first of the series to jump a generation and while many other games might leave their legacy behind, this one attempted to keep as much of it as it could. This included a massive range of DLC songs, game set list exports and instruments. It was a wonderful thing to behold and while not everything could make it, the large selection was appreciated. The game itself aimed to provide the core experience of the Rock Band series while slimming some aspects. It's always great to pull out the old plastic instruments and go for a spin, with any of the options being a blast. While I primarily play guitar, it's not too bad to sing occasionally despite being probably awful at it. I just nail those middle tone songs mostly, if I'm being generous to myself.

Rock Band 4 released in 2015 on Xbox One and Playstation 4. It was developed by Harmonix with initial distribution handled by Mad Catz, eventually this was turned over to PDP with a new wave of instruments. The game shipped with sixty songs and features a backwards compatible library of over 2000 songs. Certain instruments are also compatible from Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 through dongles or similar items. There was a follow-up expansion called Rivals that added some desired modes along with a fun story based mode that was quite hilarious.


The game is certainly the best of entertainment for groups and something I've enjoyed playing throughout the years. I've grown quite the library over that time and while at the time of writing the music they offer as DLC is slightly pop-focused, they've put out some quality tracks throughout the series' history. There's a nice variation here with the core concept of expanding on the game being excellent. It's really all about creating your own library of music and I hope Harmonix will always try to support this aspect. I certainly miss my white Xplorer guitar and it will always sit there waiting to perhaps someday get support. The core features were definitely present with Rock Band 4, but it did honestly lack some features that the other previous games had.

Most of these were fixed with the great expansion and it was nice to see such support for this stable platform moving forward. It's almost like a perfect definitive version for the series no matter which instrument players enjoy. The presentation is solid as always and while the set list for this entry wasn't the strongest, it was nice to discover new music. That's a huge part of these games for me, this and Guitar Hero is that I can get introduced to some tracks I might never have heard until the game. I'll continue to rock with this series as it's got a long ever growing history and this fourth entry still holds up well.

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