Hey gang!
As 2014 comes to a close, we took a look back at everything we did this year and promptly fainted. Our very own Annette said it best in a recent tweet, but to put a more PG spin on that sentiment, this year was bonkers for us. After releasing zero games in 2013, we came back in a big way this year, launching 4 titles, a successful Kickstarter campaign, a closed alpha, and we started work on a whole bunch of new, as of yet unannounced, games.
We had releases on console, PC and Mac, and mobile, and we announced that we were developing a project for VR. We released a bunch of DLC, attended loads of events, and made a bunch of new fans and friends. We’re all pretty jazzed for what we have in store for you in 2015, but before we get there let’s all take one last look back at 2014.
This year Harmonix stepped all the way out of its comfort zone with its development of A City Sleeps. While most of our history has been spent focusing on broad casual party-friendly game experiences, A City Sleeps challenged every trend here. It's single player. It's a HARDCORE shoot-em-up. It's our first Steam game. It's our first game made with Unity Engine. Holy moly!
But as anyone who played it could see, it was a labor of love for the very small team who made it. And it is indeed a game that delivers on musical gameplay in an innovative and genre-defying fashion that has become a Harmonix hallmark. Hallmarnix.
If you're seeing this post over the holidays you can grab the game (through January 2nd) for 35% off over on Steam at acitysleeps.com!
I'll see you on the (medium difficulty) leaderboards!
Earlier this year, Harmonix started a Kickstarter campaign to revive one of our beloved early titles from the PlayStation 2 era. Thanks to the generosity of 14,112 super fans, our dream became a reality. The campaign closed in May and since then the team has been hard at work developing a new Amplitude for next-gen Sony consoles. This foray into open development has resulted in numerous backer updates detailing our progress, an early showing at a top-secret PAX Prime event, and our public debut at the PlayStation Experience earlier this month, which was met with high praise. The excitement and outpour of support we’ve received from our community over the past several months has been heartening. We cannot wait to get the game in your hands next year.
The quiet period post-Dance Central 3 was shattered this year when we released Dance Central Spotlight, a dance-and-DLC focused title exclusively for the Xbox One. Not only can fans now bust a move with their shiny new consoles and the updated hardware of Kinect 2.0, but it meant we rapidly put out a TON of really awesome DLC. And, just as if not more exciting than that even, all songs now have 8 routines. So basically, you can and should be dancing all the time.
It’d be a long list if we tried to cram ALL the new songs we’ve released this year, but check out this long song list to see everything you can currently play in Dance Central Spotlight!
We’ve also kept busy this year showing off the game at PAX Prime and running a few giveaways. You can also check out the behind-the-scenes dives we did into the designing of Dance Central Spotlight. All that and more is right here in the Dance Central blog roll.
After much anticipation, 2014 marked the long-awaited release of Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved. This collaboration with Disney Interactive gave Harmonix an exciting creative challenge to innovate using our expertise in music and motion. The team created an entirely new gestural beat-matching experience using the Kinect camera, took players on a journey of musical creativity, and gave them the tools to compose music in groundbreaking ways. Since the game’s October launch, we’ve seen hundreds of unique remixes created in-game uploaded to the Fantasia YouTube channel (makes for an excellent party playlist!) and we look forward to many more. In true Harmonix fashion, we’ve supported the game post-launch with downloadable content including remix packs and new songs. You can get the full rundown of songs and packs available in the Fantasia section of the Harmonix blog.
In addition to the bigger console titles, and the experimental PC games, we also released a mobile game this year! While we had dabbled in mobile game development with Phase and VidRhythm, Record Run was our first crack at really trying for something bigger. The result was a new kind of “rhythm-runner” - an endless runner with beatmatch elements, set to your own personal song library.
Through Record Run we learned a lot about mobile development, and a lot about self-publishing, and it was exciting playing around with new tech, new styles of gameplay, and new art styles. Keep posted for more mobile news from Harmonix in 2015!
Even though 2014 may seem like a sleepy year for Rock Band, there was still a lot of work put into maintaining the franchise. There were several rounds of DLC re-licensing to make sure that we keep as many tracks as possible in the store, the official announcement that we were sunsetting Rock Band Network hit, and just this past week we announced a sale on DLC, Rock Band Blitz, and Rock Band 3 to close out the year.
Our co-founder Alex Rigopulos kicked off the PAX East 2014 keynote by reassuring fans of Rock Band that the franchise remains near and dear to our hearts at Harmonix. And while 2014 didn’t see the announcement of a new Rock Band title, Alex did hint at “grand plans” to bring the series back at some point in this new console generation. Since that keynote we’ve been hounded daily for more news, and it has been moving to see such a strong show of support, and a continued desire for more Rock Band. Thanks for sticking with us!
That's all for Harmonix in 2014. Thanks to all the fans for your support this year. We can't wait to share new stuff with you in 2015!