Fortnite Festival

Fortnite Festival is a 2023 rhythm game developed by Harmonix and published by Epic Games. In the game, players perform a song while attempting to get the highest score possible based on their performance. Each song has four different instruments, and players choose which part of the song they want to play, as well as the difficulty of the song, with higher difficulties changing the layouts of 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. Songs available range from those composed by Epic Games Sound Team to those from popular artists.

The game was released in December 2023 as a part of the Fortnite launcher. Since release, numerous in-game "seasons" have released, which change the games promotional material to be themed around a specific featured artist. Additional updates have also allowed the usage of guitar controllers and added new gameplay modes built with the controllers in mind, playing similarly to the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series of games. Fortnite Festival received mixed reviews from critics, with criticism toward the price of songs as well as the gameplay.

Gameplay
Fortnite Festival is a rhythm video game accessible via the Fortnite launcher. The game features three modes, the "Main Stage", the "Jam Stage", and the "Battle Stage." The player is able to 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 respectfully), bass, and vocals (in instrumental songs, vocals is used as an alternate lead part for other instruments).

On the Main Stage, a group of 1-4 players will choose a selection of available songs, and when playing them attempt to time button inputs correctly to the notes of the chosen song, with the players score and combo multiplier increasing the more inputs one gets correct. The player can choose one of four difficulty options, ranging from easy to expert. While the other difficulties only use four button inputs for notes, the expert difficulty uses five. Additionally, "pro" options are available for lead and bass, which take advantage of compatible guitar controllers and feature different song layouts, utilizing a different type of note, "hammer-on and pull-off." After correctly playing specially marked sections of each track, the player is granted "Overdrive", which doubles their current score multiplier. If several players activate "Overdrive" at the same time, the multipliers will stack.

In the Jam Stage, players are able to make mashups of several different songs they own, 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 are also playable in Battle Royale, Creative and Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN).

In the Battle Stage, released in an update in June 2024, 16 players are pitted against each other to play 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. The last remaining player with the highest score wins.

Monetization and music selection
A variety of songs are featured in Fortnite Festival, being composed by popular artists (e.g. Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Weezer), as well as original tracks composed by Harmonix and the Epic Games Sound Team. While a rotating selection of daily free songs are provided to the player, the player also has the option to purchase a song with V-Bucks, Fortnite's in-game currency. Each song has a price of 500 V-Bucks, equivalent to $4.50. Due to the dynamic approach to the song library, the developers are able to 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.

Seasons
Fortnite Festival features in-game "seasons," which are themed around a specific featured artist and adjusts in-game material to be based around them. Each season contains a battle pass system, known as the Festival Pass, which allows players to unlock additional song and cosmetics typically based around that season's featured artist. For example, the season themed around Billie Eilish brought her songs "All the Good Girls Go to Hell" and "Therefore I Am" to the in-game item shop, though made "Oxytocin" only available via the Festival Pass. Additional collaborations include the one themed around the Coachella music festival during April 2024, and another that allowed players to purchase Fender branded instruments.

Development and release
Fortnite Festival is developed by Harmonix, the developers of the Rock Band series and the first few Guitar Hero games. The game was conceived as part of Epic's goal to expand the experiences within Fortnite, which included Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing. 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, whilst also being favorable for music publishers in order to aid this. 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. 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.

The game released on December 9, being the last game to added to Fortnite after Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing. Support for plastic guitar controllers was confirmed to already be in progress with the release of Festival. Performance Designed Products (PDP), which previously had supplied instrument controllers for 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. 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. A May 2024 update later allowed players without guitar controllers to play these "Pro" tracks using standard controls. The Battle Stage was added in a June 2024 update, alongside Metallica content for the fourth season of Festival.

Reception
Critics were divided on Festival 's gameplay, with many pointing it out as being similar to previous Harmonix games with little difference; PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor believed that some song charts were repurposed from previous games. Bailey Dustin 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. 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 be unenjoyable when playing an instrument that a song didn't utilize well. Nevertheless, she described the game a "great introduction", though one that needed more work. IGN 's Luke Reilly echoed similar thoughts as 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.

Responses towards in-game monetization was negative. Taylor believed that, while it was similar to other free-to-play games, it was a turn-off from the game. Reilly thought similarly, finding it to be a predatory practice when compared to the average prices of music on iTunes and the cost of songs in Rock Band, describing Festival 's pricing as "galling" when compared to the latter. Digital Trends' Giovanni Colantonio wrote that it "[left him] wondering if Epic Games bought Harmonix for its music game expertise or for what value it could bring to the Fortnite shop."

Reviewers were generally critical of the "Jam Stage" mode, with Reilly believing it to a "waste of effort entirely" that was effected negatively by the price of in-game content. 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. Colantonio believed that the Jam Stage suffered the 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."