Harmonix
PDP is releasing the Riffmaster, a new Wireless guitar controller for Rock Band 4 and Fortnite Festival
The plastic instrument peripherals of old are coming back, thanks in no small part to the very long-lasting Rock Band 4 and Harmonix’s newest project, Fortnite Festival.
Gaming peripheral company PDP has just announced that they’re supporting music rhythm games with a new wireless guitar controller, the Riffmaster, which is set to launch this spring and be compatible with Rock Band 4 and the recently released Fortnite Festival.
Revealed in detail by IGN, PDP’s new controller still doesn’t have a price tag on it, but it’s got some very interesting features that improve on the original line of plastic instruments that were all the craze back in the heyday of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. To start, the company claims that this wireless guitar controller has up to 36 hours of battery life. It is also foldable for easy storage, and its got an ambidextrous design to allow for left-handed players to use them without any issues.
On the basic side of things the Riffmaster includes everything you would imagine from a traditional guitar controller: five fret buttons at the top of the fretboard, five at the bottom, a whammy bar, a strum bar, and a frontal Dpad and buttons on the guitar’s face. It also has a a thumbstick on the back of the fretboard, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a replaceable pickguard that might allow for some customization.
A new era of music games is on the horizon
Just a few months ago, Epic Games and Harmonix released Fortnite Festival, a new music game mode in Fortnite that allows players to jump into rhythm games of a variety of modern artists. As of this moment, the mode has been restricted to playing on keyboard or controllers, which has been less than ideal for what it’s supposed to be. Compatibility with older instrument peripherals was promised by Harmonix, but until now we had no mention of new peripherals being developed.
On the other hand, Rock Band recently announced that it would end its weekly DLC releases for Rock Band 4, which had been going strong for over a decade, with new content coming to the game regularly and a big enough active fanbase that had kept the game alive.
The PDP Riffmaster has been confirmed as compatible with both games, and there will be versions for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, as well as for PS4 and PS5.