Fortnite Festival makes me feel like I’m playing Rock Band in an online digital playground

SHOULD I PLAY FORTNITE FESTIVAL?

Definitely give Fortnite Festival a go if you’re a fan of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or rhythm games in general. I had a bunch of fun jamming with random players, exploring the music catalog, and testing different instruments. And though Fortnite Festival doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to the mechanics of the genre, the socialization elements that have become synonymous with Fortnite make the game stand out.

TIME PLAYED

I spent around six hours on Fortnite Festival on my PlayStation 5. A large amount of this time was focused on the Jam Stage—a more free-form mode that’s perfect for just hanging out, making friends, listening, and creating music with players from all over.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT FORTNITE FESTIVAL?

• Those sick tunes. Rhythm games are made or destroyed on their playlist, and they really went all out for Fortnite Festival. I mean, come on! It’s got The Weeknd as a headliner for launch. And that’s just one name in a list of heavy hitters, including OneRepublic, Lady Gaga, LMFAO, and even Weezer. The playlist is pretty diverse, catering to multiple generations and genre preferences. With the promise of new songs on rotation, it was easy to find something that had me nodding my head, even from the free playlist.

• The Jam Stage. This was absolutely my favorite mode in Fortnite Festival. I loved traveling around the open festival environment and listening to people mix and mash together different songs into something truly unique. I could even join in with my own songs that I had added to my playlist. To be fair, not all of the mash-ups were worth listening to; more often than not, they were quite chaotic, but even the terrible mixes were hilarious.

• I’m in the band. Being part of a live band with my buddies was fun, and the fact that we had a band score and an individual score was a great way to ensure we were all doing our part. My instrument of choice was the drums, and listening to some of my favorite songs while only focusing on the drum track definitely brought something new to the experience. The best part was that I could easily swap parts between songs. If I wanted to change from drums to vocals in the middle of a set, it was as simple as tapping a button.

• The emotes and skins. Another thing I appreciated in Fortnite Festival was the different ways to express yourself. Running around the Jam Stage and dancing to the music collaborations was great, and I loved watching all of the other dance moves that were going on. It felt like a real hangout, and I could even take most of these into the Battle Royale mode and other Fortnite maps.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT FORTNITE FESTIVAL?

• No plastic guitars...yet. One of the best things about Rock Band was the controller instruments that were specially designed to go with the game. It may sound silly, but the lack of a special controller noticeably affected my experience. This is especially notable since Fortnite Festival was literally developed by Harmonix, the studio behind the original Guitar Hero games and the Rock Band franchise, who was acquired by Epic Games in 2021. The good news: the controls for Fortnite Festival are heavily customizable. The even better news? Epic says support for instrument controllers is coming at some point in the future!

• Huge learning curve. This might be related to the controller input, but it took me a while to really get comfortable with the controls in Fortnite Festival, and that’s coming from a guy who’s fairly familiar with rhythm games. Even after rearranging the controller settings and trying out songs on easy mode, I struggled to master songs with the d-pad.

• The microtransactions. The free playlist is great in Fortnite Festival, but I had to pay around 500 V-Bucks (equivalent to just under $5 in Fortnite’s premium currency) if I wanted to purchase individual tracks. Once purchased, I could play a track any time and even use emotes featuring those songs in Battle Royale and other modes. Seeing as Fortnite Festival is free-to-play, I can’t say I’m surprised that it’s charging for music, but it still sucks that some of my favorite tracks, skins, and emotes are locked behind a paywall.

• Unruly players. As fun as the social elements in Fortnite Festival are, there’s always one person that ruins it! I won’t shout out this player’s username here, but let’s just say I had an annoying dude following me around and commenting on how ugly my character’s skin was! Moments like this turned the pleasant, chill atmosphere of jamming out to music into an online nightmare.

PLATFORM  TESTED:

PlayStation 5.