It seems like only yesterday that the music game wars were going on, with Rock Band and Guitar Hero battling it out each year for supremacy in the genre. The boom in popularity of the games skyrocketed them to unprecedented success for music games, but ultimately, they both fizzled out. Activision killed Guitar Hero by spamming new games in the series relentlessly, and Harmonix quietly stopped developing new Rock Band games, instead focusing on Kinect-centric titles such as the popular Dance Central games.

With the release of more powerful hardware and the dawn of a new generation of gaming, now marks the perfect time for the music game giants of old to rise up from their graves and take center stage yet again. Both Activision and Harmonix realized the potential to revitalize interest in the genre by releasing the games on the new hardware, with Activision announcing Guitar Hero Live and Harmonix revealing Rock Band 4 around the same time.

Since the announcements of the games, Harmonix has held most of its cards to its vest, releasing a slow trickle of information, whereas Activision has already released gameplay footage of Guitar Hero Live as well as revealed a total of 24 songs that will be used in the game. Harmonix has yet to show any gameplay footage of Rock Band 4, but the developer has now followed suit with Activision in regards to announcing songs.

Without further ado, here are the first six songs confirmed for Rock Band 4:

  • Avenged Sevenfold – "Hail to the King"
  • Fleetwood Mac – "You Make Loving Fun"
  • Jack White – "Lazaretto"
  • The Killers – "Somebody Told Me"
  • Spin Doctors – "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong"
  • The Who – "The Seeker"

Knowing the first six songs to be included in the game is nice, but there has yet to be any gameplay footage of Rock Band 4 to date. Activision released gameplay footage of Guitar Hero Live almost immediately, although it was met with mixed reception, with some lamenting the major changes being made to the formula. In any case, Rock Band 4's first gameplay footage is scheduled to debut later today, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, those hoping to play Rock Band 4 on day one will be happy to know that they will be able to use their old instruments (which are probably busy collecting dust in closets all over the world). The new instruments being made for the game will not have a redesign, but they are expected to be in short supply, so those that need to purchase all-new instruments for Rock Band 4 for whatever reason are encouraged to pre-order early.

This is in contrast to Rock Band 4's chief competition, Guitar Hero Live, which plans on introducing a brand new style of guitar to the franchise that does away with the colorful buttons from old. This means that Guitar Hero Live will require the new guitar peripheral to play, whereas Rock Band 4 is backwards-compatible with most all previous instruments for both franchises. In this regard, Rock Band 4 is clearly more consumer-friendly, and it will be interesting to see which series comes out on top when the music game rivalry is renewed later this year.

With Rock Band 4's first six songs revealed and a gameplay reveal coming later today, it's a good time to be a fan of the series. Harmonix definitely seems to have the best interests of fans at heart, considering the backwards-compatibility with old instruments, as well as the ability to suggest songs to be added to the game. Anyone not excited about the newly announced songs are encouraged to head to the Harmonix website.

Rock Band 4 is scheduled for release this fall on PS4 and Xbox One. Rumors indicate that the game will release in October specifically, but Harmonix has yet to confirm or deny these claims.

Source: IGN