This kind of bums me out.

I really like a lot of Harmonix games. Frequency and Amplitude on PS2 are some of my favorites from that system, and of course Rock Band was amazing at the time. I even bought Fuser and while I'm bad at it it seems pretty cool.

This seems like the end of the company's independent experimental period and it becoming essentially a Fortnite support studio. Obviously better than it closing and everyone losing their jobs, and for now it will continue supporting the older games, but it's another unique independent developer that's been swallowed by one of the megacorps. Gaming is consolidating and it's not for the better.

I hope Epic continues to let Harmonix make its own games from time to time but my guess is that they're going to phase out the old titles and just get absorbed into the Fortnite content farm. That's great for people who like Fortnite but I have no interest in it.

Oh well.

On the brightside, just in time to be discussed on Bombcast and Nextlander!

...

Funny, because the Triple Click crew (and Kirk's recent appearance on How Did This Get Played?!) were just talking about how it's been over a decade since plastic instrument games were in and how it would be so cool to see a resurgence in them somehow as an incentive to bring people back together post-pandemic. This news pretty effectively deflates any hope of that, I imagine.

My Disappointment Is Immeasurable And My Day Is Ruined. (pours one out for Harmonix)

Rip

I wonder what the chances are of getting Harmonix ports on Epic store now. I know Rock Band is sort of a huge rights issue but seeing that pop up on the Epic store along with other Harmonix games wouldn't surprise me if they did as a "last hurrah" before they're stuck working on whatever in-game concert event they're going to have for whatever the next artist they have lined up is.

As a guy living in Boston (where they're based) and one of like five people who bought Dropmix, I get it - they haven't had a true hit in a while, and I'll take this over layoffs or the studio closing any day of course. And maybe it means Fuser goes free on EGS or something.

FWIW it's probably not a terrible time to get bought, I'm sure Microsoft would have loved to have them.