Career Mode

Lore & Background

Rock Band is based on Harmonix's previous success with the Guitar Hero series of video games. It expands on the concept by adding a drum and microphone peripheral, allowing up to four players to play lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals.

Reader's Guide

Players can play Rock Band alone through a Career mode for lead guitar, drums, and vocals, earning in-game money for their character to purchase new outfits and instruments. Each of the 45 songs has a different difficulty ranking for each instrument part, as well as a total band difficulty. There are a total of nine difficulties, or tiers. In career mode each song in a tier must be successfully completed to move onto the next and unlock the songs in that tier. Once songs are unlocked, they may be played in any mode, including Quickplay, and multiplayer (competitive and co-operative modes) off- or online. Each instrument part in each song can be played at one of four difficulty levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert.

Did You Know?

• The game shipped with 58 songs on disc for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 and 3, while the Wii version contained 5 additional songs.
• The European version includes 9 additional songs that were later released as downloadable content for other regions.
• A total of 13 bonus songs can be unlocked through Career mode, including songs from bands formed by Harmonix employees and local bands from Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Boston.
• The Wii version features 5 additional songs originally released as downloadable content on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
• The European Wii version contains 14 additional songs compared to launch versions.