Epic Games has announced that they’ve acquired Rock Band and Dance Central developer Harmonix “to create immersive music experiences.”
“Over the last 26 years we have pushed ourselves to redefine how people experience and interact with music,” Harmonix stated in a blog post on their website. “Now, we’ll be working with Epic to once again challenge expectations as we bring our unique brand of musical gaming experiences to the Metaverse, and we couldn’t be more excited.”
According to Epic Games’ own statement on the acquisition, “the Harmonix team will collaborate closely with Epic to develop musical journeys and gameplay for Fortnite,” so we should be able to expect a lot more big budgets concerts coming to Fortnite in the future, potentially with even more interactivity.
Thankfully for fans of Rock Band 4, and Harmonix’s previous titles, they explained in their own blog post that “we aren’t planning to change the way we support any of our older games,” so you should be able to continue playing your favourite Harmonix games without a problem, as they won’t be being delisted or removed from Steam any time soon.
This latest acquisition is all part of strengthening Epic Games’ efforts to build the Metaverse, which will now feature Harmonix’s “unique brand of musical gaming experiences.” According to Alain Tascan, vice president of game development at Epic Games, working with Harmonix will “transform how players experience music, going from passive listeners to active participants.”
While there is still content in the pipeline for Fuser, and Rock Band Rivals, it’s currently unclear if Harmonix will have any freedom to develop new games outside of Epic Games’ Metaverse.