April, 2013 saw what was believed to be the last installment in Harmonix's ludicrously long-running DLC support of its Rock Band franchise. With the release of Don McLean's "American Pie", the studio ended its five-year run of weekly downloadable song updates, seemingly putting the franchise itself on ice for the foreseeable future as well. It was a sad, but poignant conclusion to the plastic instrument craze that gripped seemingly the whole of video games for like a solid four or five years.
Except that it wasn't a conclusion at all. Today, we have learned that Rock Band wasn't dead, but just biding its time, waiting for the right moment to reemerge and rock once again. Finally, the developers at Harmonix have found the songs intended to reinvigorate the brand and return the plastic instrument genre to its former glory.
OK, probably not. In reality, Harmonix has randomly decided to toss out a trio of new songs from the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Arctic Monkeys, and the Foo Fighters. The new tracks--"Shepherd Of Fire", "R U Mine", and "Something from Nothing", respectively--will retail for the usual price of $2 on the Xbox Live and PlayStation marketplaces, starting tomorrow (January 13).
When asked if this new release would be the start of a continuing trend of new Rock Band DLC releases, Important Harmonix Spokesperson (and, for disclosure's sake, former co-worker of mine) Eric Pope rubbed his spokesburns vigorously and hastily changed the subject to how trim my figure looks of late. So, perhaps this is just a random, one-off thing, or maybe Harmonix is looking to test the waters and drum up interest for something else Rock Band related in the future. Given the rumors kicking around of Activision wanting to bring back Guitar Hero, it would make a certain amount of sense.