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Rock Band Sessions - Cancelled Rock Band Game?

327 views · Published 20 May 2015 · 3:17 · Indexed 23 October 2026

Channel: Rock N' Roll True Stories · 2015 · Gaming

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IGN Rock Band Sessions Article http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/05/11/canceled-rock-band-3-sequel-revealed-ign-first

IGN is continuing their coverage of all things Rock Band this month (hey… that’s our job), and takes a hard right turn from their Rock Band 4 news with a look at a game that never was. Harmonix had plans to take the Rock Band franchise is a different direction, and designed, but never released, a game called Rock Band Sessions.

Originally conceived and designed as a “four player collaborative song writing module,” Rock Band Sessions never made it to market. What happened?  “It was a mess” Daniel Sussman notes. “There’s an experience in here that ought to exist… just not this one.”

The game really ran headlong into musical composition, versus the typical Rock Band experience of musical expression. A title like this doesn’t surprise me, considering there were definitely hints from those within Harmonix that they were looking for ways to tackle this very thing. And while Rock Band 4 may not feature music composition, there will be room to explore some improvisation.

Check out the IGN video for a slightly more in depth look at Rock Band Sessions.

Rock Band: Sessions entered development shortly after the conclusion of Rock Band 3. Harmonix canceled its excellent concept -- a Rock Band game where you make music instead of matching other artists’ notes -- shortly after the team completed a playable prototype. But the game still exists inside Harmonix, and the team was brave enough to let IGN make some music in a game that will never release.

“It didn’t work for a number of different reasons,” Product Manager Daniel Sussman told IGN. “But Rock Band Sessions was really interesting to work on, and really exposed a lot of strains to us, and made us think about how musical expressivity in the format of a Rock Band game. And it actually informed Rock Band 4 in a lot of ways.”

Rock Band: Sessions, like Rock Band proper, involves a band of friends playing plastic instruments to hit colored notes. In Sessions, you’re creating the audio track for each instrument -- with pre-authored bass/drums/vocals/guitar of varying speeds and styles filling in the gaps if you so choose. In that case, “You are rolling into a studio where three or four parts are written,” Sussman explained, “and it’s up to you to fill out the bass line, or fill out the guitar line, or whatever that may be. So that turned into this interesting prototype we developed around Rock Band sessions.”

IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey and Zach Ryan played drums and bass, respectively, while I took on the guitarist role in Sessions. Our first attempt to make music was an unmitigated and embarrassing disaster. We sounded like a teenage garage band jamming to different songs, with no coordination or regard for our sound. My frantic and out-of-time chords had no synergy with Zach’s bassline, or Ryan’s rhythm [Editor’s Note: This implies I have rhythm. Which I don’t]. If Sessions had a game over screen, this is how we would have found it.

“With four people trying to build their own thing, but also have their thing be connected to what someone else is trying to build at the same time, it quickly devolved into chaos and anarchy,” Sussman said. “That’s not so fun.” Harmonix eventually “constrained it to a single-player experience, mostly because it was a way to organize an experience.”

We started over, waiting for a drum beat first, then matched the guitar to the bass rhythm, and actually made something I sort of loved. When we played the song “in full,” Rock Band Sessions organized our brief, crummy tune into something that was fun to play in a Rock Band game. I felt satisfied having made a little song, with an intro verse and a chorus, that harmonized well with my coworkers. Sessions isn’t quite the same as playing music with friends in the garage or on the couch, but there’s a special feeling to making something that sounds not-awful -- and, if you’re good enough, like a real song.

Sessions is a fascinating experiment, and something we enjoyed tinkering with, but isn’t the sort of game Harmonix wanted to sell for $60.

ussman explained, “What we found was that the content for Rock Band sessions had to be created for Rock Band Sessions, that this wasn’t a gameplay mechanic that could apply to the vast catalog of licensed material that we already had that you would need to support in a future Rock band.”
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Hey everybody what's up i wanted to just do a short video on an ign feature that was done regarding rock band 4 last week and one of thoese big features was the sequel to rock band 3 that was eventually cancelled. Now the game was called Rock Band Sessions if you guys haven't seen or read about it you can read about it at rockbandaide.com or you can go to the ign video which is in the description b

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