Ubisoft’s Rocksmith+ Releases Next Week

I don’t talk about it often, as there isn’t much reason to do so when talking about trucking, farting in the wind, killing sex workers by the hundreds, and whatever you call Immortality. Either way, in another life I spent my time playing guitar while looking like David Bowie crashed through Elton John’s wardrobe and in real life too. Behind me in my office is a guitar on a stand, and surrounding me throughout my office is several others too. So, in other words, I might know a thing or two about music and teaching, predominantly for stringed instruments like guitar, bass, ukulele, and anything I could get my hands on.

Then came along Ubisoft’s Rocksmith, which I view as the anti-Christ on account of it being nothing more than lines of code to determine if you’ve created enough slightly out-of-tune noise. It is the uniformity of playing that it is bound to bring that I view as unholy to the Gods of Rock. I believe that is just a half-naked Jables and Kage. Joking aside, my heart grew two sizes the day Rocksmith‘s final DLC was announced because I thought I was free of uniformity and generally slightly clunky guitar playing. Then 2021 happened.

A little over a year after being announced, Rocksmith+ became the latest subscription to put your money down the drain, and it is releasing next week. As noted in the press release, the game will release on the 6th of September for PC users and supposedly “[t]he subscription service can run on 10-year-old laptops with Windows 10.” Rocksmith+ is a collaboration between Ubisoft San Francisco, Ubisoft Osaka, Ubisoft Pune, and Ubisoft Bucharest, set to provide a “360-degree approach and unlimited access to guitar learning.” All for the measly sum of your entire wallet: Starting at $14.99 a month, $39.99 for a 3-months subscription, and $99.99 for a full year.

Set to have 5,000 songs upon launch, the library will be expanding weekly by adding “The Clash, Juan Gabriel, Alicia Keys, Santana, and more.” I’ve heard of three of those, though I am sure “and more” are just some indie band, foppy haircuts, and a crap tone. I’m joking again, but in the face of something so ridiculous, how could you not? The press release goes on to note that the free Rocksmith+ Connect app will also release later this year, the app being the terrible idea of a “phone-as-a-mic feature.” The same mic that makes it difficult to pick up what your uncle slurs out while making Thanksgiving plans.

To say I am distrusting of the system is an understatement, as I am clearly a robot-racist and will be brutally killed in the 2037 uprising of metal dogs with arms on their backs. Call me old-fashioned, but I enjoy music without that mechanical perfection and uniformity that this is suggesting. On the one hand, if you play a guitar wrong and you are Jimmy Hendrix (look him up kids), and on the other, if you play a guitar wrong you are Jimmy Henry, the toothless busker in the high street outside the bakers.