Rock Band 4 saw a pretty hefty December update, with the extra difficult Brutal Mode and Rock Band 3 track exporting being the main features pushed out to aspiring rockers. The January update will bring even more to Rock Band 4, and Harmonix has released a substantial blog post detailing what we can expect in both the January update and throughout future updates. The main takeaways from this post are:
- Practice Mode and Setlist Mode. Harmonix is looking to improve on both of these modes over the Rock Band 3 implementation and wants to release them as soon as possible.
- Online Play. This is still a major priority for the developer, but it is also extremely complex to implement well. In the post, Harmonix states that they want critical feedback from fans about what is crucial for successful online play, and will be sending out a survey soon to gather that information.
- Exports. Harmonix is trying to bring songs from Rock Band, Rock Band 2, and Lego Rock Band as soon as possible to Rock Band 4. They are aiming to have these up for those who have already exported by the end of January.
Freestyle guitar solos will hopefully be online soon.
However, the biggest news about the January update actually gets detailed in another blog post. Due to “a handful of gnarly bugs” that Rock Band 4 shipped with, players have artificially inflated leaderboard scores. Harmonix will be fixing these exploits with the January update, as well as implementing new code that will allow them to deal with problems in the future. However, this also means that they will be wiping the leaderboards for every song and instrument combination. This will not eliminate the high scores saved in your data or your percentages and full combos. In the future, Harmonix will be able to target specific song leaderboards if an exploit is discovered. The developers apologize, but ultimately stated, “These changes ensure that, in the future, you won’t be unseated from the top spot by someone using an exploit.”
In good news, the update will allow scores achieved in “Play a Show” mode will now post to leaderboards like any other mode. For more on Rock Band 4, check out our top ten DLC songs.
Sad your best scores are going to be wiped? Or glad to see exploits be dealt with by the developer? What song are you most looking forward to from the older exports? Let us know.
Jordan has been gaming and geeking as far back as he can remember. You can find him on Twitter @Jordality and occasionally find him streaming on Twitch.tv/JojoTheNinjaGaming. You can also check out his YouTube channel, Dolly Bear Productions.
