“Long live rock, dead or alive,” this man once said, and for just over a year now, Rocksmith 2014 has effectively been dead. But now it has come to life again and is back on Steam in a slightly changed format Remastered edition of Rocksmith 2014 Learn and play.
First released in 2013, Rocksmith 2014 is a bit like Guitar Hero, except that it uses a real guitar as a controller and teaches you how to play real songs. It’s quite good and has garnered a “very positive” user rating on Steam over the years, but as of October 2023 – that’s the 10th.vol anniversary – Ubisoft withdrew the game from sale. No reason for the removal was given at the time, but we suspected it was due to expiring licenses, and Ubisoft has now certainly confirmed this.
“In 2023, Rocksmith 2014 Remastered was temporarily removed due to the expiration of our music licensing agreements,” reads the Steam page. “While we believe Rocksmith+ offers the best place to learn guitar, bass and piano with its extensive music catalog, we’ve also heard from the Rocksmith 2014 community. You’ve been asking for the return of Rocksmith 2014 Remastered, so that’s exactly what we did!”
Expired licenses continue to be a problem: although the re-released Rocksmith 2014 “is identical to the original” in terms of functionality, all licensed songs have been replaced with “a collection of songs and exercises from our popular downloadable content packs”, including:
- Bachsmith and Bachsmith II
- A pack of classic tunes
- Easy Rocksmith Exercises, Vol. 1 and 2
- Rocksmith Intermediate Exercises, Vol. 1 and 2
- Advanced Rocksmith Exercises, Vol. 1 and 2
This probably doesn’t sound great – I want to rock with Zeppelin, not “intermediate exercises” – but up DLC for Rocksmith 2014 remaining: 1226 fragments, including single songs and song packs. If you already own the original version of Rocksmith 2014, you will not be able to download this edition or you will lose access to the licensed music contained in it.
I think it’s very frigid that Rocksmith 2014 is back, and I can’t assist but wonder if Ubisoft’s comments about Rocksmith+ provide a bit more insight into the reason for the return than intended. Rocksmith+ is advertised as “an evolution of Rocksmith 2014 Edition that had to be discontinued due to music licensing requirements,” but full access to the game requires a subscription costing $20 per month. Moreover, Rocksmith+ is not compatible with Rocksmith 2014 songs, so any music purchased for this game will be unusable with the recent one. As you might expect, Rocksmith+ currently has an “overwhelmingly negative” rating Coupleand has not had more than 100 concurrent players since the beginning of June – which is a minuscule fraction of Rocksmith 2014’s concurrent player count, even when removed from the list.
Not only is Rocksmith 2014 back on Steam, but it’s also 70% off, which means you can grab it right now for just $3. Long live Rocksmith 2014.
