Fortnite Festival Finally Adds Support for Rock Band 4 and PDP Riffmaster Guitar Controllers
Over four months after Fortnite Festival was released, Harmonix and Epic Games announced that the rhythm game now supports Rock Band 4 plastic guitar controllers.
In a blog post, Epic Games revealed that, as part of the new changes introduced in season 3, players can now use Rock Band 4 guitar controllers for Fortnite Festival’s new song parts: Pro Lead and Pro Bass. The new song parts are available on the Main Stage, which is considered the Fortnite Festival’s main gameplay mode. Players can play solo or with three friends and choose a song while trying to button-mash and get as high a score as possible before the tune concludes.
This guitar controller support includes the PDP Riffmaster, a new third-party wireless guitar controller announced a few months ago for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Unfortunately, Epic revealed that the whammy bar on the Rockband 4 controllers does not provide any warp to the audio when pressing it, stating that for not the whammy bar “only provides a visual effect.”
You can check the full list of guitar controller support below:
PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5:PDP Riffmaster Wireless Guitar Controller for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4RockBand 4 Rivals Wireless Fender™ Jaguar Guitar for PlayStation 4RockBand 4 Wireless Fender™ Stratocaster™ Guitar for PlayStation 4Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S: PDP Riffmaster Wireless Guitar Controller for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PCRockBand 4 Rivals Wireless Fender™ Jaguar Guitar for Xbox OneRockBand 4 Wireless Fender™ Stratocaster™ Guitar for Xbox OnePCPDP Riffmaster Wireless Guitar Controller for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC*RockBand 4 Rivals Wireless Fender™ Jaguar Guitar for Xbox One*Requires the Microsoft Xbox One Wireless Adapter for Windows 10 to use on PCRockBand 4 Wireless Fender™ Stratocaster™ Guitar for Xbox One**Requires the Microsoft Xbox One Wireless Adapter for Windows 10 to use on PC
The blog post mentions that Epic will “have more instrument controller news to announce in the future,” so those wishing to play the drums or grab the mic and sing a song at the Fortnite Festival must wait a little longer. While Fortnite Festival’s instrument controller support is still incomplete, including the guitar and bass parts is a massive step in the right direction for the rhythm game.
Fortnite Festival launched last December and was criticized by critics and players, mostly due to the price of songs and the lack of support for instrument controllers. A few days after its release, Harmonix studio director Alex Rigopulos told IGN in an interview that support for game peripherals shaped like instruments is “very much a priority” for the studio.
“Fortnite Festival is just… Rock Band on a gamepad, and it’s a little like playing a light gun game on an analogue stick. Yeah, it works, but it doesn’t feel like quite the right way to play it,” my colleague Luke Reilly wrote in his review of Fortnite Festival, which he gave a 4/10.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
About Post Author
