Ubisoft’s presentation at E3 2021, the Ubisoft Forward, unveiled plethora of new IPs and updates to existing ones. One of the more intriguing surprises was the resurrection of the Rocksmith franchise. The now ten-year-old series will be coming back as a subscription service-based experience dubbed Rocksmith +, which will actually teach you how to play a real-life guitar and/or bass. Ubisoft will be partnering up with Gibson, who is arguably the world’s largest guitar distribution company, as well as Epiphone, Kramer, Ibanez, Ernie Ball, Mashall, Orange, and Mesa/Boogie.
According to the press release Rocksmith + “will have a variety of authentic arrangements that represent songs the way the artists originally played them, and all songs in the library will be playable with chord charts for players to hum and strum to.” The release goes onto say that new and old musicians will find an “expansive library” of songs within the massive catalog. You’ll be able to use a new program called the Riff Repeater, which allows you to control the speed of the song giving you a chance to learn some difficult parts at your own pace.
Another new feature called the Adaptive Difficulty lets you play any song at your own skill level as you learn. Using the Rocksmith Workshop you can set all of this up, as well as your own arrangements in the program. It’s important to note that you’ll be able to do all of this with an actual instrument, as is the nature of the original Rocksmith franchise. As we already mentioned, Rocksmith + will be available as a subscription service and will cost $14.99 for 1 month, $39.99 for 3 months, and finally, $99.99 for a full 12 months.
The original Rocksmith launched in 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was followed up with Rocksmith 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which was viewed as a reboot rather than a full sequel. Ubisoft did not state how many tracks will be part of Rocksmith +, it is worth noting that the previous iteration had roughly 66 songs to play with. Since this is now going to be a subscription service, it’s possible that the library is going to be exponentially larger.
Rocksmith + will launch this Fall for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It will be available for Android and iOS at a later date. You can register for the open beta today.