Ubisoft just announced that Rocksmith, the music rhythm game that teaches players how to play a real-life guitar, is getting a sequel during the publisher’s Ubisoft Forward E3 presentation.
Rocksmith originally released in 2012, shortly after the death of guitar controller games Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The game utilized a similar scrolling “highway” of notes, except Rocksmith required players to plug a real-life guitar into their PC or console with a provided cable and play the full instrument. The game featured scaling difficulty sliders on dozens of popular songs that covered the range of players playing a guitar for the first time all the way up to players who wanted to master the solo to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird," in addition to a host of mini-games and tools designed to teach players new skills.
Rocksmith appeared to be dead, as Ubisoft ended the weekly release of additional songs as paid DLC in April of 2020. But now Ubisoft announced Rocksmith+ during its Ubisoft Forward digital presentation. This new version of Rocksmith will be a subscription service that will continually provide new music for players to learn and access to new educational features and tools, as well as old ones like the riff repeater. The song library looks to be rather large, and includes the likes of Boston, Cyndi Lauper, Run DMC, Johnny Cash, T-Pain A Tribe Called Quest, and more.
Most notably, Rocksmith+ will feature tablature, a musical notation alternative to sheet music popular among guitarists. Tablature being an option in Rocksmith+ will lower the barrier of entry for many existing guitarists who don't have previous experience with music rhythm games like Guitar Hero.
Rocksmith+ will also offer an option to ditch the "Real Tone" guitar-to-USB cable of the old game and instead use a smartphone to listen to their electric guitars, acoustic guitars, and bass guitars, which will then send that info to the console or PC playing the game. Other new features include live-action video lessons and the ability for users to make their own note charts to the existing music in the game.
This announcement was leaked earlier today by Gibson, creators of the Les Paul and SG guitar styles, which many of the Guitar Hero controllers are based on. The email went out prematurely before today's announcement, encouraging readers to sign up for the Rocksmith+ closed beta.
Rocksmith+ will have a closed beta on PC. Those interested can sign up right now at Rocksmith.com/BETA. The game will release later this year.