Rocksmith+

Rocksmith+ is a follow-up to the original Rocksmith franchise, with a major change to a subscription-based music education service.^[5] Using their own instruments, users play along to songs in the Rocksmith+ library, with genres including rock, pop, hip hop, country, Latin and R&B.^[6] For piano, the platform includes arrangements from pop, classical, soundtracks, and other genres.^[7]

Players can connect an acoustic, electric, or bass guitar via a special USB jack (called the Rocksmith Real Tone cable), audio interface, or via a smartphone’s microphone with the use of the free Rocksmith+ Connect mobile app.^[8] Players can also use Rocksmith Workshop to create and add their own guitar arrangements.^[9] Ubisoft also offers a free guitar tuning app for iOS and Android called Rocksmith Tuner.^[10]

In addition to guitar, Rocksmith+ also offers piano lessons, with the choice of a falling notes 3D interface or traditional sheet music view. At the piano feature’s initial launch, Rocksmith+ offered 400 piano arrangements from artists including Coldplay, Billy Joel, and covers from Elton John, Van Halen and Pantera.^[11]

Ubisoft announced the Rocksmith+ subscription service at Ubisoft Forward during E3 2021.^[12] Rocksmith+ was announced to launch in Fall 2021 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, and on Android and iOS at a later date.^[13]

A Rocksmith+ closed beta for Windows ran in July 2021.^[14] The beta library had roughly 500 songs, with the expectation of increasing to thousands at launch.^[15] In September 2021, Ubisoft announced that the Rocksmith+ release date would be delayed until 2022, to make changes based on beta user feedback.^[16] It released on September 6, 2022 for Microsoft Windows. On June 9, 2023 the Rocksmith+ mobile app released on iOS and Android.^[17]

On December 5, 2023, Ubisoft announced an update to Rocksmith+ adding piano and keyboard learning on iOS, Android or PC.^[18]