Fortnite Festival

Development and release

Fortnite Festival was developed by Harmonix, the developers of the Rock Band series and early Guitar Hero games. It was conceived as part of Epic's goal to expand experiences within Fortnite, alongside Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopolous stated the aim was a free-to-play rhythm game for Fortnite's millions of players, with songs available for dynamic expansion and favorable terms for music publishers. Harmonix also developed the Patchwork system for use in Fortnite Creative or Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) to allow creators to incorporate dynamic music.

The game was revealed on December 2, 2023, during an in-game Battle Royale event called the Big Bang, where Eminem performed Lose Yourself and players could perform notes as the first gameplay reveal. Festival was released on December 9, 2023, the last game added to Fortnite that year. It is available on Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Support for plastic guitar controllers was confirmed in progress at release.

Performance Designed Products (PDP) announced the PDP Riffmaster controller in January 2024, released in April 2024, with versions for PlayStation consoles and for Xbox consoles and PC, also compatible with Rock Band 4.

Reception

Critics were divided on Festival's gameplay, with many noting it resembled previous Harmonix games with few differences. PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor believed some song charts were repurposed from earlier games. Dustin Bailey of GamesRadar+ called it a winning formula that worked like prior Harmonix games, and while he found Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing had more content, Festival captured his heart and he most looked forward to its future content.

Conversely, Taylor described the game as awfully barebones compared to previous Harmonix games, lacking polish and unenjoyable when playing an instrument a song did not use well, though she called it a great introduction needing more work. IGN's Luke Reilly echoed these thoughts, believing the lack of features from earlier Harmonix games led to isolating gameplay that could turn Fortnite players into rhythm game fans but not vice versa. Responses to in-game monetization were negative.

Taylor found it a turnoff despite being like other free-to-play games. Reilly considered it predatory compared to iTunes and Rock Band song prices, calling Festival's pricing galling. Digital Trends' Giovanni Colantonio felt the monetization made him question if Epic bought Harmonix to profit from Fortnite cosmetics rather than their rhythm game experience. Reviewers were generally critical of the Jam Stage.

Reilly called it a waste of effort negatively affected by content prices. Bailey wrote that while it included a light version of Fuser, it typically made him want to quit after minutes. Colantonio found the Jam Stage lacked interactivity and had poor song compatibility, tending to become an unmixed mess.