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Technology
Max Freeman-Mills

It's time to dig out those Rock Band guitars again, Fortnite gives them new life

Fornite Festival – Billie Eilish.
Quick Summary

Epic Games has expanded the list of controllers compatible with Fortnite Festival – its rhythm game extension to Fortnite.

That means you can now use your Rock Band 4 guitar to play along with the game.

Epic Games has announced another update for Fortnite Festival, the rhythm-based music game that it now runs alongside Fortnite.

The good news is that anyone who played Rock Band 4 and still has their guitar controller is in luck – it'll now work with Fortnite Festival (provided you're playing on the right platform for your controller, such as PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or PC).

In fact, Epic has also provided a handy new compatibility table for people to check and see whether their hardware should work or not. 

(Image credit: Epic Games)

As you can see, there are now a handful of guitar controllers that will work with Festival, with those Rock Band 4 options the latest additions.

Sadly, though, this does mean that those with older controllers, from Rock Band 3 or earlier, are still out of luck for now. 

That said, Epic said in the blog post announcing the new season of content for Fortnite Festival that it will "have more instrument controller news to announce in the future". So, hopefully this means that work continues behind the scenes to bring more and more old guitar controllers into the fold.

After all, series like Rock Band and Guitar Hero were in their heyday quite a long time ago at this point, so it'll doubtless take some development time to see if their controllers can be adapted to work with modern consoles.

For those actually hoping to drop into Fortnite Festival to check everything out, you don't actually need a special controller, since everything works with your standard control scheme by default.

This season is all themed around megastar Billie Eilish, who gets a pair of skins in the game along with a flurry of Eilish-themed stage decorations including a microphone and even a keytar. 

There are also a bunch of new songs to try out, along with a battle pass to complete if you're game. There are bug fixes aplenty too, and the addition of new Pro Lead and Pro Bass parts that take the complexity up a little for those who want some more challenge. 

A little like it aims to do with Rocket Racing, it looks like Festival will now run alongside Fortnite's main modes for the foreseeable, so if you've got a Rock Band 4 controller lying around it might be the perfect time to try it out.  

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