Epic Games to pull the plug on Rock Band’s online servers, but the show’s not over yet
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All good things must come to an end. The same can be said for Epic Games as it prepares to close online servers for some of its old titles – including many Rock Band games – and remove some others entirely
Fans of several major titles in the Rock Band series will see their online services shut down next month. For most games listed in Epic Games’ official announcement (opens in new tab)can you still play them offline after the servers go offline.
That means if you’d rather gather your bandmates in the living room for some local multiplayer musical shenanigans, you’re safe. However, the same cannot be said for Rock Band Blitz players as the game is being pulled from the Epic Games store entirely.
You have until January 24, 2023 to say goodbye to your online servers for most Rock Band titles, including the original Rock Band Trilogy, Green Day: Rock Band, and Beatles: Rock Band. The only exception is reserved for the fourth term. When that day comes, perhaps after all that time you’ve spent possessing those poor internet strangers in rock ‘n’ roll gaming battles, you’ll consider learning how to play the guitar for real. (Yes correct.)
While five of its titles will go completely offline, Rock Band isn’t the only game series to be shut down by the Epic Games team. The full list of games for which online servers are being removed is as follows:
- Rock band
- rock band 2
- rock band 3
- The Beatles: Rock band
- Green Day: Rock band
- 1000 tiny claws
- Dance Central 1-3 (VR online multiplayer will continue to be available)
- Monsters (probably) stole my princess
- Supersonic, acrobatic, rocket-propelled combat vehicles
- Unreal gold
- Unreal II: The Awakening
- Unreal Tournament 2003
- Unreal Tournament 2004
Finally, Epic has also confirmed some titles that are going down for good. “Unreal Tournament (Alpha), Rock Band Blitz, Rock Band Companion App, and SingSpace will shut down on January 24 and will no longer be accessible to players,” Epic’s announcement ends.
Welcome to a new kind of thrill
Anyone who knew someone with a game console in the mid to late 2000s knows the sheer, unbridled joy (or embarrassment) of picking up a guitar-shaped console remote to channel your inner slash and jam with your friends to the greatest hits of the genre. . By tapping the colorful notes on the screen and strumming your guitar at the same time, anyone can become Randy Rhoads in an instant. From Judas Priest to Paramore, Rock Band really came through with the goods when it burst onto the scene in 2007 to smash Guitar Hero’s party of one.
Created by the developers of the first two Guitar Hero games at Harmonix Music Systems, Rock Band was released just a month after Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. Thus began the push and pull between the two game franchises, with Activision’s Guitar Hero fighting to maintain its player base.
Until the launch of Guitar Hero: World Tour, the rival supergroup simulator Rock Band was the only way to equip your band with instruments other than bass, rhythm or lead guitars. Neversoft (among others) seemed to rush to create World Tour, which came out the following year in 2008, and also offered other playable instruments such as microphones and drums for the full band experience.
The two franchises later moved on to the Nintendo DS family in 2009. Guitar Hero: On Tour, released in June, raised the bar with an innovative guitar grip that could be inserted into the Gameboy Advance cartridge slot (RIP my teen wrist), and Rock Upon the release of Band 3 in November of that same year, the game debuted on Xbox 360, PS3, and the DS together.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band are rivals to the bittersweet end. I won’t miss the days when I blamed my terrible scores on my controller with sticky keys, or fighting with my sister over lead guitar over rhythm. That said, as Rock Band follows Guitar Hero’s lead by deleting its online servers for all but one game, I’d like to send a very special middle finger to the one song that still has the scoliosis spine of every ’90s baby. makes you shiver. The one song that ruined many a MySpace Top 5 and caused far too many cases of early tantrums.
Correct, Dragon power; I’m talking to you honestly.