Given Fortnite’s history of significant concerts and Epic’s acquisition of Harmonix two years prior, a musical aspect of some form had to be included. What Epic is introducing today is much more elaborate: a whole new game called Fortnite Festival. Players can join in this communal area to create new mixes or perform their favorite songs.
The new mode offers gamers two options, or stages, to play through. The main stage, often known as the championship stage, is Fortnite’s recreation of the rock band atmosphere. You’ll establish a band with several buddies and decide on a song to play. The song is then played using the typical format of a music game, in which notes slide down vertical bars, and you press the appropriate button when the note reaches the bottom. Naturally, as they play the music, players can hear it, which can be awkward if you’re not good. Every performer gains points, and in the larger Fortnite ecosystem, points translate into XP and character advancement.
The jam stage features elements from Harmonix’s more recent (and less well-known) mixing titles, Dropmix and Fuser, while the main stage may be familiar to those who were there for the 2000s music game heyday. Even while those games featured competitive aspects, players would have much more fun using them as musical toys, combining various portions of well-known songs to create new ones. In the Fortnite Festival, jamming entails teamwork.
When you first drop into a jam, your avatar will be standing in a virtual world with stages, clubs, and green areas. It feels like a theme park, reminiscent of Pleasure Island at Disney World, now defunct. Regardless of the world’s appearance, you can perform music anywhere you want by activating the emote wheel and starting to groove. Here, music alternatives have taken the role of the actions. Select an instrument and song, and your character will begin to play. It’s a specific section of the song, not the full one. It would help if you worked with other players to create something more comprehensive.
Playing music together with other players is quite simple. To initiate your own emote wheel, approach the person currently playing (marked by a wavy circle for your convenience). Whatever the genre or style of the two songs, the algorithm will automatically combine them. Would you like to incorporate the vocals from “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers into the synth from “Gangnam Style”? Proceed without hesitation, and don’t be shocked if another person uses the beat from The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights.”
It is possible to quickly switch between instruments and alter the key and speed to change a slow song into a fast one and vice versa. Here, there’s plenty of opportunity for ingenuity and mayhem as the waters rise.
While Fortnite Festival heavily borrows from Dropmix and Fuser, it has a critical benefit over those two games that might help it succeed where its forerunners failed: it’s free. The three new Fortnite modes are free, but Festival stands out because it uses a lot of licensed music. The extra expenses, particularly for the song packs, have significantly deterred playing music games. While $2 for your favorite music by Nirvana or Bad Bunny might not seem like much at first, it soon mounts up, and for a child without a credit card, any internet expense can be unaffordable. This music game has the potential to revive interest in music games because it can be downloaded for free on any computer, console, or mobile device without being inundated with advertisements.
Conclusion
Fortnite Festival, a new game mode in Fortnite, combines elements of traditional music games and collaborative creativity. It features two stages: the championship stage for competitive play and the jam stage for collaborative music creation. Players can seamlessly blend different songs and genres, utilizing licensed music in a free-to-play model. The game’s emphasis on accessibility eliminates financial barriers, potentially revitalizing interest in music games and setting Fortnite Festival apart as a groundbreaking experience within the genre.