There was a time, about two weeks ago (no fortnight puns to see here, move along) when Fortnite was merely the best-known Battle Royale shooter on the planet. Its publisher, Epic Games then announced Fornite’s Big Bang, which would bring with it three new modes to the game – Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing (based on Rocket League). and finally, the Fortnite Festival – a new rhythm game from Harmonix, makers of Guitar Hero and Rockband back in the day.
Lego Fortnite has smashed the roof off expectations, with a reported concurrent 2.4 million players. Within hours of launch, Fortnite Festival had clocked an impressive 600k as well. While it is unclear how many of these are new to Epic’s mega-franchise, we can be fairly certain that they are all not existing players, and many have jumped on board to see what all the fuss is about.
Upon launch, Fortnite Festival lets you jam alone or with your squad on stage to songs from the likes of the Cranberries, Laga Gaga, or the featured-in-the-trailer-below White Stripes. At the moment there are songs to choose from and a rotating number of other free tunes to have a go at as you try to climb the leaderboards, but Fortnite’s gonna Fortnite and you can bet we will be seeing lots more song packs in the item store soon. If you want to get more heavily into things there is a Festival Pass (think Battle Pass) that will allow you to play through and pick up rewards such as emotes guitars and so forth via its Free Track. There is also a Premium Reward Track that is not included which will cost you 1,800 V Bucks, which works out at just under $15! This will give you another four tracks that you can add to your library (including Gangnam Style!) along with a host of cosmetics to boot.
How long is Fortnite Festival’s Season?
Season 1 of Fortnite Festival has launched with The Weeknd as its poster star and the Premium Track features Blinding Lights as one of the extra songs. Epic says Season 1 will run until February 22 next year so there is plenty of time to see how invested you want to get in all these new-fangled things.
Can you use a Guitar Hero controller on Fortnite Festival?
The one disappointment that some of the 600,000 concurrent players Fortnite Festival has attracted might have is also in the pipeline for solving. As of yet, you cannot use a rhythm controller that you might have lying around the bedroom from your historical gaming feats, so you cannot use that Guitar Hero axe that is gathering dust under the bed. However, Epic confirmed to IGN that adding this type of controller is a ‘priority’ for the team and they will be arriving at some point in the future. This type of commitment also indicates that Fortnite Festival is here to stay for the long term.
