What You Need to Play Rock Band in VR

Thanks to Harmonix it’s time to rock out once again, this time in virtual reality (VR) with Rock Band VR on Oculus Rift. Pick up your guitar and rock out to a mix of classic hits from down the years and modern day rock masterpieces. There’s a variety of different game modes too. Including the classic gameplay synonymous with the series and a campaign mode to chart your rise to greatness.

But what exactly do you need to virtually become the next big thing of the music scene? And once you’ve got that how do you set it all up?

Well, you’ll be needing the Oculus kit, the game, and a guitar:

1. Acquire an Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch.
   At the time of writing Rock Band VR is an Oculus exclusive title and for that you will need not just an Oculus Rift but an Oculus Touch as well. The Ouclus Touch will not be held by you through play except for navigation purposes and is actually fastened to the head of the guitar. More on this shortly.You can of course acquire both the Oculus Rift and Touch from a variety of technology stores on the high street and online.
2. Choose your instrument. It’s time to pick your musical weapon, and there are five to choose from that Rock Band VR supports. Three for the PlayStation brand and two primarily for XBOX One. Compatible controllers can be found online at the likes of Amazon.

• The PlayStation 3 Fender Stratocaster
  Previously associated with Rock Band 3 and available in the classic Cherry and Black colour schemes, as well as Blue. Requires Bluetooth.

• The PlayStation 4 Fender Stratocaster
  Previously associated with Rock Band 4 and can be found in the classic Cherry and Black colour schemes, as well as White with a Black interior. Also requires Bluetooth.

• The PlayStation 4 Fender Jaguar
  Previously associated with Rock Band 4 Rivals and can be found in a Dark Red with a Black or White interior, as well as in Blue with a Black interior. Like it’s fellow PlayStation guitars it requires Bluetooth

• The XBOX One 4 Fender Stratocaster
  Previously associated with Rock Band 4 and can be found in Black with a White interior, as well as White with a Black interior. It will requires you to have Windows 10 Anniversary Edition installed on your PC.

• The XBOX One Fender Jaguar
  Previously associated with Rock Band 4 Rivals and can be found in Dark Red with a White interior, Charcoal Grey, as well as in Blue with a Black interior. It will requires you to have Windows 10 Anniversary Edition installed on your PC.

3. Acquire the game.

You can do this from the Oculus Store, where the the game is priced at £39.99 (GBP) at the time of writing. However you can also acquire a RockBand VR bundle on Amazon where you can purchase both the game and a peripheral. You can also choose whether you would prefer an Xbox One or PlayStation VR guitar controller Although your choice of guitar appears to be the black and white Stratocaster only.

If you’d like to see what the box contains you can watch an unboxing of the Stratocaster from VR Community member ‘Ray Of Minneapolis’ here.

4. Connect Your Fender Controller with Oculus Touch

If you own an Oculus Touch you should already have a necessary component for playing RockBand VR, the Rock Band VR Connector. Essentially a clip enabling the Touch to be added to the guitar which is tapped to the back of the guitar head.

Helpfully, Oculus has chosen to produce a video so you can see it in action. You can find that below.

https://youtu.be/HIEkqmmSWos

After that and with your game installed you’re all set up. Go out and prove you are the best!

This post was originally written by the author for VRFocus.