Harmonix Planning 'Fundamental Creative Reinterpretation' For Rock Band

Rock Band developer Harmonix says the future of the four-year-old rhythm game-franchise will involve a "fairly fundamental creative reinterpretation" of the performance-based music game. In a wide-ranging interview with Giant Bomb, conducted by former Harmonix employee Alex Navarro, senior VP of product development Greg LoPiccolo stated plainly "that we have not abandoned the Rock Band franchise." Added Hamonix CEO and co-founder Alex Rigopulos, "Looking into next year, we're actually considering fairly fundamental creative reinterpretation of what the Rock Band business is. We're committed to the franchise, but when I think that when we do things with it in the future, it's going to be a pretty dramatic departure from what we've done before." While the team was vague on the details of what form such a reinterpretation might take, CTO Eran Egozy gave one example of the kind of thing that will not be a part of a new Rock Band game. "You might assume we're going to add saxophone or something along those lines, but no, the kind of direction we're planning on taking Rock Band ... [is] more suitable to the kind of environment we're in, what people are doing now, what they're interested in playing now, versus, say, 2007." The statements echo those CEO Rigopulos made in an August interview with Gamasutra, where he said "it's clear that the [instrument-based game] category needs some material reinvention" and mentioned "fairly ambitious plans on where we want to take the Rock Band franchise in the future in what I think will be some big, unexpected directions." Elsewhere in the Giant Bomb interview, the team discussed the ups and downs of being independent from former owner Viacom, promised continued support and innovation for the Rock Band Network, and reflected on the myriad reasons behind the collapse of the instrument-based game market.