Fortnite Festival

Fortnite Festival
Developer(s)	Harmonix
Publisher(s)	Epic Games
Series	Fortnite
Engine	Unreal Engine 5
Platform(s)	Android iOS Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	December 9, 2023
Genre(s)	Rhythm
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Fortnite Festival is a 2023 rhythm game developed by Harmonix and published by Epic Games. In the game, players perform songs while attempting to achieve the highest score possible based on their performance. Each song features four different instruments, and players choose which instrument they want to play, as well as the song's difficulty; higher difficulties change the layouts of the songs. A variety of songs can be chosen from, with a free selection that changes daily, as well as the opportunity to purchase songs outright from the Fortnite item shop. Available songs range from those composed by Epic Games Sound Team to tracks from popular artists.

The game was released in December 2023 as part of the Fortnite launcher. Since its release, numerous in-game "seasons" have been introduced, each themed around a specific featured artist. Additional updates have also allowed the use of guitar controllers and added new options designed with the controllers in mind, allowing the game to be played similar to a Guitar Hero or Rock Band title. Later updates also added a player versus player mode. Fortnite Festival received mixed reviews from critics upon release, who criticized the gameplay for being similar to other rhythm games, as well as the price of songs.

Fortnite Festival is a rhythm video game accessible via the Fortnite launcher.^[1] The game features three modes, the "Main Stage", the "Jam Stage",^[2] and the "Battle Stage."^[3] The player can choose which aspect of the song they want to perform, with the options being between drums, lead (consisting of the main guitar or other instrumental parts of a song, alternating between in-game guitar or keytar for each respectively), bass, and vocals (in instrumental songs, vocals is used as an alternate lead part for other instruments).^[4][5]

On the Main Stage, a group of 1-4 players will choose a selection of available songs, and attempt to time button inputs correctly to the notes of the chosen song. The players' scores and combo multipliers increase with accurate inputs.^[2] The player can choose one of four difficulty levels, ranging from easy to expert.^[4][5] While the other difficulties only use four button inputs for notes, the expert difficulty uses five.^[4] Additionally, 'pro' options are available for lead and bass, which take advantage of compatible guitar controllers and feature different song layouts, including hammer-on and pull-off notes.^[6] After correctly playing specially marked sections of each track, the player is granted "Overdrive", which doubles both their own and their squad's overall current score multiplier. If several players activate "Overdrive" at the same time, the overall squad score multipliers stack, but individual multipliers aren't affected.^[2][7]

In the Jam Stage, players are able to make mashups of several different songs they've purchased, with the tempo and key of each track being adjustable. This mode has gameplay similar to Fuser, another game previously made by Harmonix. The versions of the songs used in this mode are known as "Jam Loops", and can be used in Battle Royale, Creative and Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN).^[8][9]

In the Battle Stage, added to the game in a June 2024 update, 16 players are pitted against each other to play up to four randomly-chosen songs in a battle to attain the highest score, with the lowest-scoring combatants being eliminated at the end of each song. Activating Overdrive in Battle Stage will allow players to target opponents with attacks to disrupt their scoring. At the end of the final song, the player with the highest score wins.^[3]

A variety of songs are featured in Fortnite Festival. These includes ones from popular artists (e.g. Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Weezer), as well as original tracks composed by Harmonix and the Epic Games Sound Team.^[8][10] While a rotating selection of daily free songs is provided to the player, they also have the option to purchase a song with V-Bucks, Fortnite's in-game currency. Each song costs 500 V-Bucks, equivalent to $4.50.^[5][8] Some songs can temporarily be available for free by completing challenges, like "Holiday" by Green Day, which was available in the summer of 2024.^[11] Due to the dynamic approach to the song library, the developers can add songs at any time, such as the release of three singles from Billie Eilish's album Hit Me Hard and Soft on the same day as its release in May 2024.^[12]

Fortnite Festival features in-game "seasons," which are themed around specific featured artists and adjust in-game material accordingly. Each season contains a battle pass system, the Music Pass (formerly the Festival Pass), which allows players to unlock additional songs and cosmetics typically based around that season's featured artist.^[13] For example, the season themed around Metallica brought the songs "Master of Puppets" and "Enter Sandman" to the item shop, but made "One" exclusive to the Festival Pass.^[14] Additional collaborations include the one themed around the Coachella music festival during April 2024,^[15] and another that allowed players to purchase Fender-branded instruments.^[16] With the release of Season 6 in November 2024, the Festival Pass was rebranded as the Music Pass. Additionally, it was made where unlocking cosmetics from the pass was possible anywhere on the Fortnite platform.^[17]

Fortnite Festival is developed by Harmonix, the developers of the Rock Band series and the first few Guitar Hero games.^[2] The game was conceived as part of Epic's goal to expand the experiences within Fortnite, which included Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing.^[1] According to Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopolous, their goal was to create a free-to-play rhythm game available to the millions of players of Fortnite, with songs freely available in a manner that allowed for dynamic and quick expansion to the in-game library, while also being favorable for music publishers in order to aid this.^[21] Alongside the Festival Stage and Jam Stage, Harmonix also developed the "Patchwork" system, which could be used within user-made Fortnite Creative experiences or in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) applications to allow creators to incorporate dynamic music systems into their creations.^[21] Fortnite Festival was revealed on December 2, 2023, during an in-game Battle Royale event titled the "Big Bang." A part of the event featured Eminem performing "Lose Yourself" as an in-game concert, with players able to perform the notes of the song as the first reveal of Festival's gameplay.^[22]

The game was released on December 9, being the last game to be added to Fortnite after Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing.^[1] It is available on the same platforms Fortnite is available on, those being Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.^[23] Support for plastic guitar controllers was confirmed to already be in progress with the release of Festival.^[1] Performance Designed Products (PDP), which previously supplied instrument controllers compatible with Rock Band 4, announced a new controller for Festival in January 2024, the PDP Riffmaster. This was released in April 2024, and is available in two versions: one compatible for PlayStation consoles, and another for Xbox consoles & PC. Both versions are also compatible with Rock Band 4, featuring the same button layout and basic mechanisms.^[24]

With the start of Season 3 in late April 2024, Festival was updated to support the Riffmaster and a select few other guitar controllers, along with updating all past and future songs to include unique "Pro Lead" and "Pro Bass" parts that utilize the features of these controllers, similar to Rock Band.^[6] A May 2024 update later allowed players without guitar controllers to play these "Pro" tracks using standard controls.^[7] The Battle Stage was added in a June 2024 update, alongside Metallica content for the fourth season of Festival.^[18] On August 16, 2024 Fortnite Festival became playable on iOS devices in the European Union.^[25] In November 2024, Peripheral maker CRKD announced a new controller, the Neo S, that includes a hardware addon featuring five buttons that can be played as the note paths in Fortnite Festival, similar to the peripheral used in the Guitar Hero: On Tour spinoffs for the Nintendo DS.^[26] For the one-year anniversary of the game's release in December 2024, Harmonix made almost all of the songs in-game playable for free for one weekend, while also releasing new "Platinum" edition Fortnite outfits for The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, and Karol G.^[27]

Critics were divided on Festival's gameplay, with many pointing out it was similar to previous Harmonix games with few difference;^[5][2] PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor believed that some song charts were repurposed from previous games.^[4] Dustin Bailey of GamesRadar+ wrote that the game had a "winning formula," believing that it worked well like previous Harmonix games that built up the formula for years. He stated that, while he found Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing to have more content, Festival was the one that "captured [his] heart" and where he looked forward to future content the most.^[2] Conversely, Taylor described the game as "awfully barebones" compared to previous Harmonix games, believing there to be a lack of polish in certain areas and found the game to be unenjoyable when playing an instrument that a song didn't utilize well. Nevertheless, she described the game as a "great introduction", though one that needed more work.^[4] IGN's Luke Reilly echoed similar thoughts to Taylor and Dustin, believing the lack of features from previous Harmonix games led to "isolating gameplay" that could make Fortnite players into rhythm game fans, but not vice versa.^[5]

Responses towards in-game monetization were negative.^[4][8][5] Taylor believed that, while the monetization was similar to other free-to-play games, it was still a turn-off.^[4] Reilly thought similarly, believing it to be a predatory practice when compared to the average price of music on iTunes and the cost of songs in Rock Band, describing Festival's pricing as "galling" when compared to the latter.^[5] Digital Trends' Giovanni Colantonio felt that the monetization practices left him questioning if Epic Games bought Harmonix to make money off of Fortnite cosmetics, instead of their prior experience in making rhythm games.^[8]

Reviewers were generally critical of the "Jam Stage" mode,^[5][2][8] with Reilly believing it to be a "waste of effort entirely" that was negatively affected by the price of in-game content.^[5] Dustin wrote that, while the inclusion of a "light version" of Fuser stood out, it typically left him wanting to quit playing after a few minutes.^[2] Colantonio believed that the Jam Stage suffered from a lack of interactivity compared to the main game, as well as what he found to be the poor compatibility between songs. He wrote that the gameplay "[tended] to become an unmixed mess of tracks that don't fit together."^[8]