The show is over for Rock Band 4 DLC after eight years of updates
Epic Games is ending Harmonix’s eight-year streak of weekly Rock Band 4 DLC so the developer can work on Fortnite Festival instead. Harmonix’s Daniel Sussman posted the announcement on the studio’s blog and said the Rock Band 4 team had been working on Fortnite Festival for two years prior to the free expansion’s launch at the end of 2023.
“After over 8 years of weekly Rock Band 4 DLC releases, we’re here to let you know that January 25 will be the last DLC release of the RB4 era,” Sussman said in the post. “All other live services will continue as normal, including Rivals seasons, online play, and everything else.”
“Working in support of the Rock Band community has been a high point in my professional life - wading through the thousands of song requests we get, working through what songs to pursue and release, it’s all hard work but also really satisfying.”
Sussman said that Fortnite Festival will support Rock Band 4 instruments in the near future and encouraged players not to retire their guitars just yet. Like Lego Fortnite and Fortnite Rocket Racing, Epic promised regular free updates for Fortnite Festival, so expect the current rotating music catalogue to – eventually – become richer and more expansive.
The news of Rock Band 4’s end comes three years after Epic bought Harmonix and follows the Fortnite maker’s recent trend of shifting its studios, such as Psyonix, to work solely on Fortnite updates or closing them outright.
In 2023, Epic laid off nearly 1,000 people, including most of Fall Guys studio Media Molecule, citing overinvestment in the Epic Games Store and decreased Fortnite engagement as the cause. Fortnite reached an all-time concurrent player high shortly after the layoffs were announced.
