Harmonix Developing New Rhythm Game in Partnership with Twitch
posted Friday Oct 26, 2018 by Scott Ertz
While two decades ago Konami was the kind of rhythm games, today that title definitely belongs to Harmonix. It seems that no one knows how to produce a fun and creative rhythm game quite like Harmonix. The company created their name on the massively successful title Rock Band, and last year, in partnership with Hasbro, launched one of our top holiday gifts: DropMix. Our team at DDRLover was surprised to see not only a new music title but even more surprised that it was a new take on music.
This year, at TwitchCon 2018, the Amazon-owned company announced that they had partnered with Harmonix to bring a new spin to an old music idea: karaoke. Taking the best strengths of both companies, Twitch's active community, and Harmonix's music knowledge, combining them into a karaoke title makes perfect sense. Karaoke is an activity that works the best when there is an audience, which is something that Twitch will bring to the game automatically. Combined with Harmonix's execution of making music fun, and their established history of success with vocal games in Rock Band, there is a lot of potential in Twitch Sings. According to Twitch,
We're just starting to scratch the surface of what's possible when everyone wants to play together. There are many games and genres that are made better on Twitch, and we believe there's an opportunity for a new category of game to emerge that's made to be streamed, where the audience isn't a 'nice to have' - they're a crucial part of the game experience.
We knew karaoke would be the perfect place to start. It's live. It's always entertaining. And when it really gets going, the line between the crowd and the stage disappears completely.
The most interesting aspect of the game is the ability to involve your Twitch followers in the game itself. You can actually perform duets with members of your streaming community, sharing the whole experience live with the rest of your viewers. While the closed beta will be limited to a small number of streamers, anyone can apply.
