History VideoGame / RockBand

** Of course, all songs released prior to Rock Band 3 will not immediately feature keyboard parts, harmonies, or Pro mode support (besides drums) within Rock Band 3, but there has been word HMX is seeking fan input on what past songs should be updated with these features.

** Released December 31st 2011: ''[[Music/{{Rush}} 2112]]''. Any of the three pieces qualify, but if the pack is bought ([[ScrewedByTheNetwork Unless you're on the Wii]]), it's also available as one ''twenty minute'' track.

-->They have three Music/{{Megadeth}} songs, well we have ''Rust In Peace'' which contains one of them.
-->They have "[[Music/{{Rush}} 2112]]"? We have all of ''Moving Pictures''.

On April 2, 2013, Harmonix released its (seemingly) final official DLC song, Music/DonMcLean's "Music/AmericanPie", closing out [[LongRunner 281 consecutive weeks]] of DLC releases. However, on January 12, 2015, Harmonix announced the [[http://www.harmonixmusic.com/blog/rb-dlc-11315/ first new DLC releases]] for ''Rock Band'' in nearly two years. This led into the eventual ''Rock Band 4'' announcement on March 5, 2015.

Two years after the release of ''Rock Band 2'', the third game, ''Rock Band 3'', was released in October 2010, with a great deal of new features. The game introduces an all-new keyboard controller, with its own note charts for the 60+ songs that have a real-life keyboard (or substitute) part. Also new is the "Pro" guitar mode with two new controllers: the Fender Mustang controller to simulate a six-string with a fret board of over a hundred buttons, and another one that ''is'' a six-string Fender Squier that can be used both in and out of the game. The Pro Drum mode forces players to hit cymbals appropriately, and the Pro Keyboard mode uses all 25 keys on the new peripheral. A MIDI-to-game adapter is available that allows certain real life e-drums and keyboards to hook into the game. The pro guitar is also made to an open standard, so third-party instruments such as the You Rock Midi Guitar work with the game as well. Harmony support like in the Beatles and Green Day games is also present, as well as a much-improved drop-in\drop-out system, similar to the Party Mode in ''Guitar Hero 5'' which allows players to drop in and drop out any time, even in the middle of a song. The game allows up to seven players to play at once, provided one has [[GottaCatchEmAll all seven controllers]] (two guitars, a set of drums, a keyboard, and three microphones). This time there are 83 songs, which all have guitar, pro guitar, bass, pro bass, (pro) drums, keys, pro keys, and up to three vocals charts except in cases where the appropriate instrument doesn't exist in the original song. Previous [=DLC=] songs work in ''Rock Band 3'' with their original (guitar, bass, drums, and vocals) tracks, plus pro drums which were always charted but weren't used, while new DLC songs have all the new features except pro guitar and pro bass charts, which can be bought together on select songs for an extra dollar.

On March 5, 2015, Harmonix announced that ''Rock Band 4'' would be coming to UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxOne. Previous generation DLC is compatible with the next generation and upgraded to include ''Rock Band 3'' features such as harmony vocals and fill lanes at no additional charge, and Harmonix worked "aggressively" to make previous generation instruments also compatible. However, the gameplay is scaled back to basics, with keyboards and Pro modes removed. The developers intend to use ''[=RB4=]'' to turn it into a platform for the series, avoiding the stagnation that resulted from regular game releases with regular updates and new content releases.

In August 2012, ''VideoGame/RockBandBlitz'' was released for Xbox Live Arcade and UsefulNotes/PlayStationNetwork, which serves as another SpiritualSuccessor to past Harmonix game ''Frequency'' (much like ''Unplugged'' and the DS version of ''Rock Band 3''), except with 25 new songs[[note]]23 songs were new to the series while 2 were unexportable songs from ''Rock Band 2''[[/note]], and compatibility with ''all'' DLC released prior to ''Rock Band 4'''s launch.

After a failed crowdfunding attempt to develop a proper PC version of ''Rock Band 4'', Harmonix released ''Rock Band VR'' exclusively for the UsefulNotes/OculusRift on March 23, 2017. VR is a guitar game only and introduces new mechanics based on guitar chording; however, the classic 5-button guitar gameplay is still present. VR's soundtrack is a mix of new songs and songs from previous entries in the franchise.

*** The pro modes (except for drums) in ''Rock Band 3'' have a bit of error allowance for them:
*** For keys, if you accidentally clip one key adjacent to a white note you hit then and there, it will not break your combo.
*** For chords in Guitar, if you are close to the chord shape, the game will count it as correct, and in some situations, you can strum multiple strings for an individual note without penalty. For example, in ''Antibodies'', the E suspended chords used everywhere but the chorus [[note]]a D chord on the middle two strings, E7 suspended, and E7 suspended-4, according to the game, most of which use effectively the same fingering[[/note]] can be played with all strings held at the seventh fret, and there is some lee-way with the picked notes (You can hit multiple strings without penalty). However, the game still expects you to make some effort to distinguish between chords, so you must have some of the strings held at 9th fret when the bumps appear to avoid breaking combo.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** On December 31, 2011, we got "2112" from Music/{{Rush}}. The whole twenty-minute version.

''Rock Band 2'' was released a year later (2008), with significant upgrades to the often-criticized instruments - including the $300 Ion Drum Kit, which can also be used as a regular MIDI drum kit. Not to mention drum tutorials, a World Tour playable alone (or without needing to sing while you do), the ability to port over songs from ''Rock Band'' 1 for a small fee (on the 360 and [=PS3=]), and more. Both games are supported by a large pool of downloadable songs (the same large pool, in fact -- all DLC is on the same platform, though songs released beyond ''Rock Band 3'' won't work in previous games), including some by artists and genres further flung from what most consider "rock", like country, funk, and electronic dance, as well as a number of independent and international artists. Whereas the first game had less than 60 songs, this one had 84, with all songs available on every instrument. It was in this era that the Rock Band Network was introduced, allowing anyone with an Xbox Live developer account to submit their own music and charts and receive a piece of the revenue.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: The Duke of Gravity in ''Rock Band 3''. Your own created characters can be this in any of the games if you choose.

* BonusBoss: All of the really difficult DLC songs count.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4a1d055f8bcff0cd686d73407024f176.png]]

*** That's it? Beatles Rock Band has the Abbey Road Medley, which is -- are you ready? -- [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin all of the songs from "You Never Give Me Your Money" on, played as a single track]]. It clocks in somewhere around '''sixteen minutes'''.

** ''The Beatles: Rock Band'' has an achievement for a perfect playing of Ringo's only drum solo in the band's career, just after the beginning of "The End". As if that's not bad enough, there's one for finishing all the Beatle Beats training tracks, the last of which is... THE DRUM SOLO FROM "THE END".

* AllGuitarsAreStratocasters:
** Which is really saying something, because the official guitar controllers are Stratocasters. And before ''3'', you always start with a Stratocaster. Though you can buy other models like Telecasters, Jaguars, and those offered by Fender subsidiaries like Squier, Gretsch and Jackson.
** Subverted in regards to peripherals as of October 2016, when Rock Band 4 Rivals released with a new official Fender Jaguar controller produced by PDP.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: The [[JustForPun Securi-T-Rex]] in ''Lego Rock Band''.

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: More often than not in ''[=RB3=]'', you or any of your bandmates will spin around like he's standing on a spinning platform during songs as you do well enough in it. Expect it to happen at least [[OnceAnEpisode once or twice for every song you play]].

* DifficultySpike: Moving from Medium to Hard on guitar or drums. Guitar charts start including the orange fret, meaning that you have to start moving your hands around instead of having your four fingers sit on green, red, yellow, and blue all the time. On drums, the bass pedal finds itself on the off-beats more often, forcing some extra limb independence out of players, and that's not taking into account the presence of drumrolls and fills with much more notes than one would see in a Medium chart. Moving to Expert is even worse, since the number of notes charted in Hard modes tends to be reduced until a certain standard of reduced difficulty is reached, while Expert is the song in all it's difficult glory. Expect to be murdered by the guitar solos.
** Moving from Medium to Hard in pro guitar has an equally difficult curve. Medium mostly has you doing not much more than calm streams of two finger power chords which are easily voiced as 0-2, 7-9, 5-7, whereas Hard starts throwing relentless walls of three finger chords, arpeggios, and even barre chords at you.
** The drums in Rock Band 2 suffer from a general difficult spike in the Impossible tier. The first few songs ("[[Music/{{Motorhead}} Ace of Spades]]", "[[Music/{{Mastodon}} Colony of Birchmen]]", "[[Music/{{Rush}} The Trees]]", etc.) are fairly easy for impossible songs, but then the difficulty shoots up significantly with "[[Music/FooFighters Everlong]]" and "[[Music/{{Megadeth}} Peace Sells]]". ''But'' then it gets '''even worse''', with FIVE songs that all qualify as NintendoHard ([[Music/{{Metallica}} Battery]] (thrash metal), Shoulder to the Plow ([[GenreMashup southern-fried-stoner-pirate-death metal]]), [[Music/JudasPriest Painkiller]] (speed metal), [[Music/DreamTheater Panic Attack]] (progressive metal), and Visions (death metal) (see a pattern?).
** For bassists, the first real difficulty spike came on the day that "[[Music/{{Muse}} Hysteria]]" was released as DownloadableContent (or packaged with the game in Europe) as the first song to be released for the platform with a genuinely difficult bass chart.
** Starting with Rock Band 3 and with all DLC since around June 2010, songs are required to use all buttons/pads on the various instruments at all difficulties if that button/pad is used in expert. It will still be fewer notes for the player to hit, but this helps with the hand position aspects.
** Of course, in reverse, the introduction of Pro mode will likely find many Expert players dropping back to Easy Pro mode to learn how to acually play a stringed instrument.
** Remember VideoGame/{{Beatmania}}? Remember how many songs have a very difficult part right at the end? Well, I present you: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffrdLPmrrtY&feature=player_detailpage#t=436s Through The Fire And Flames Expert PRO Guitar ending]]. The end of the song is even harder on basic guitar. Due to the way tapping solos work on pro (no need to strum at all), and the fact that the tapping solo on pro is "anchor 3rd fret and tap 10th and 6th", it's far easier, as on basic, the solo is "miss a note, you're done, you have to strum to start up again", not to mention the fact that it's anchoring the red fret then tapping the orange, blue and yellow frets.
** Some song\instrument combinations have a large spike from one difficulty level to the next. For example Visions on Hard Guitar is much, much harder than Visions on Medium Guitar.
** Smaller example: Brainpower by Freezepop on Guitar (Expert). Most of the song is only two different fairly easy riffs - except for one part right after the first chorus. Out of nowhere, there's a [[Music/{{Metallica}} "One"]]-esque mini-solo. Not difficult for highly experienced players since it's only fast and not across weird frets (it's just OBYOBYOBY over and over again), but playing the song for the first time, especially for less experienced players, is hilarious.

** On July 11, 2017, they announced Music/InAGaddaDaVida by Music/IronButterfly as downloadable content for [=RB4=]. Not the radio edit, but the full 17-minute version.

Remember ''VideoGame/GuitarHero''? The hours you spent wailing away on [[YourLittleDismissiveDiminutive your little plastic guitar]], [[RhythmGame pretending to be a musician]]? Well ''Rock Band'' takes that feeling and cranks it UpToEleven with the introduction of [[Trivia/RockBand vocals, drums, keyboards, and pro modes]], and it allows you to do it with up to six of your friends.

** In ''Rock Band 4'', Harmonix brought back audience participation [[UpToEleven in spades!]] Well, more then ''3'' anyway. The most recognizable songs (like "Brown-Eyed Girl" and "Somebody Told Me") have the crowd sing along, especially in the former; if you play one of the instruments that can hit the 4x combo meter before the vocals, they'll sing along to the entire song!

** Remember VideoGame/{{Beatmania}}? Remember how many songs have a very difficult part right at the end? Well, I present you: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffrdLPmrrtY&feature=player_detailpage#t=436s Through The Fire And Flames Expert PRO Guitar ending]]. The end of the song is [[UpToEleven even harder]] on basic guitar. Due to the way tapping solos work on pro (no need to strum at all), and the fact that the tapping solo on pro is "anchor 3rd fret and tap 10th and 6th", it's far easier, as on basic, the solo is "miss a note, you're done, you have to strum to start up again", not to mention the fact that it's anchoring the red fret then tapping the orange, blue and yellow frets.

* UpToEleven: ''Unplugged'' (PSP)'s Overdrive multiplier, when activated at 5x, makes the score 11x than just ten.
** Also seen in the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS version of ''[=RB3=]''.
*** But not in the [=DS=] version of ''Lego Rock Band'', because the overdrive multiplier goes up to 12.

** Some songs include drum beats where the high hat (usually charted to yellow lane) and the toms (which would be charted to blue and green lanes) are played simultaneously, meaning if the song was charted as is, it would require you to cross your arms awkwardly. For songs like this, Harmonix frequently charts the high-hat to the green lane instead, so you don't need to cross your arms. This can be seen in [[Music/{{Metallica}} "Battery", "...And Justice for All"]], "[[Music/JanesAddiction Ted, Just Admit It...]]", and "[[Music/{{Journey}} Don't Stop Believing]]".

** On the other hand, both the ''Rock Band'' and ''Rock Band 2'' exports seem to be missing a handful of songs in ''Rock Band 3'': Not only are songs like "[[Music/{{Journey}} Any Way You Want It]]", "[[Music/{{Metallica}} Battery]]", "[[Music/RedHotChiliPeppers Give It Away]]" and "[[Music/{{Soundgarden}} Spoonman]]" missing on the action, but some songs that were exportable to ''Rock Band 2'' from the original ''Rock Band'' ("[[Music/{{Soundgarden}} Black Hole Sun]]" and "[[Music/RedHotChiliPeppers Dani California]]", plus "[[Music/{{Oasis}} Rock and Roll Star]]" and "Hier Kommt Alex", which were on the European disc [and even if you bought them as DLC in the US, they won't show up for you in [=RB3=]]) are nowhere to be found in ''Rock Band 3'', presumably due to gratuitously expensive relicensing fees. Harmonix are currenly looking to see if they can bring back some of these tunes as DownloadableContent, and are already promising that the missing songs from bands fronted by Harmonix team members will be free of charge.

* TheTetrisEffect: It is not unnatural, following a session with ''Rock Band'', to find yourself listening to the radio and imagining what it would be like charted as a ''Rock Band'' song (complete with an imaginary note track flying towards you). Trying to finger note charts along with songs you know from ''Rock Band'' in other contexts is also a common symptom.

* OneGameForThePriceOfTwo: Played straight hardware-wise in that you need to buy instrument controllers to play the game, and there are a lot to buy; drums (optional cymbals), a keyboard, a USB microphone, and two distinct types of guitars. In the case of drums and keyboard, a real instrument can be used but requires the purchase of an adapter. So, unless you can get a good deal on old controllers, it's a costly game to have everything in (though "getting off the ground" simply requires a $20 copy of the game and any USB mic).

** In the original ''Rock Band'', there were only six faces available for each gender in the character creator. ''Rock Band 2'' doubled the number of faces for each gender.

* PantyShot: Since the game uses the same animations and camera angles whether your character has pants on or not, a girl in a short skirt or a ManInAKilt WILL get an upskirt shot sooner or later. However, their underwear isn't rendered, so it might not strictly count.
** The Practice Mode in ''[=RB3=]'' has characters slouching regardless of their outfit.
** Can be mistaken for [[GoingCommando going commando]], since if you take a quick glance under a specific skirt, it could almost look like a certain type of hair, even though it's just un-rendered naughty bits.

** The drums in Rock Band 2 suffer from a general difficult spike in the Impossible tier. The first few songs ("[[Music/{{Motorhead}} Ace of Spades]]", "[[Music/{{Mastodon}} Colony of Birchmen]]", "[[Music/{{Rush}} The Trees]]", etc.) are fairly easy for impossible songs, but then the difficulty shoots up significantly with "[[Music/FooFighters Everlong]]" and "[[Music/{{Megadeth}} Peace Sells]]". ''But'' then it gets '''even worse''', with FIVE songs that all qualify as NintendoHard ([[Music/{{Metallica}} Battery]] (thrash metal), Shoulder to the Plow ([[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly southern-fried-stoner-pirate-death metal]]), [[Music/JudasPriest Painkiller]] (speed metal), [[Music/DreamTheater Panic Attack]] (progressive metal), and Visions (death metal) (see a pattern?).