Nearly 10 years ago we launched Rocksmith 2014 and set out on a journey of learning and playing guitar together, practicing old favorites, and discovering new ones along the way.
You may want to know that Ubisoft's Rocksmith(R) 2014 Edition will be de-listed from Steam after October 23rd, 2023 which is one week from this post date. This is a game that makes learning to play the guitar like Guitar Hero/Rockband, which can score you or let you slowly practice a part with scrolling fret indicators.
Now, it's not on sale or anything (hasn't been for a couple years), there might be W11 issues (I'm using Win 10 and Linux computers), and you'll need a real guitar and either a mic or special USB cable to properly play the game. However, after this date you won't be able to purchase this game anymore unless you buy from a key-seller or a retail CD copy.
Of course, Ubisoft is going to replace this 40 CAD game with a subscription service model called Rocksmith+ which is 20 CAD per month and not available on Steam. On the other hand, RS2014 works without the need of a Uplay account and can be played offline (Just press Esc twice at the signin screen).
Now there are 1555 DLCs available but they will eventually be delisted as well at some point in the future but you won't be able to get them without the base game. The only DLC you will "need" is the Cherub Rock DLC because of...
Custom DLC is a community created mod lets you play user-created and converted maps. By default it uses the DLC ID of Cherub Rock which is why you need it, but this is configurable if you really don't want to spend 4 CAD. There are tens of thousands of Custom DLC songs available online so you will be hard pressed to run out of new ones to try.
Of course, Ubisoft is going to replace this 40 CAD game with a subscription service model called Rocksmith+ which is 20 CAD per month and not available on Steam. On the other hand, RS2014 works without the need of a Uplay account and can be played offline (Just press Esc twice at the signin screen).
More likely the music license expires and they can't distribute the game without one.
You're probably correct, they've already delisted some DLC songs due to license expiry...
But if they are or will be relicensing many of the songs for their subscription service Rocksmith+, why couldn't they use those same licenses to keep distributing Rocksmith 2014 and its DLC in stores? Unfortunately I'm not too thorough with music licensing.
My guess is the record companies refused to renew the perpetual license for a cost that Ubi could justify in order to keep the one time purchase model. Everyone wants subscription model from the top to the bottom.
You do know how exploitative the record labels can be, right? Those license fees will not be small. This is part of the reason games like Guitar Hero stopped being made.
Because it’s a 10 year old game with few players and even fewer that are going to buy it new….
Music licenses are expensive as a hell and it doesn’t make sense to pay for a license when you’re only gonna have a few hundred/thousand people using it.
The one thing a subscription kinda makes sense for, as opposed to paying for every song a la carte, and they don't even have all the songs of the previous games. What a fucking embarrassment.
I imagine the licensing just doesn't carry forward and it has to be re-negotiated, but if that's the case then they're hilariously slow at it. I check every six months or so and there's still only a handful of bands I recognize.
Dude rocksmith+ has zero songs from either jimi Hendrix or Chuck berry. Moving closer in time, no green day or sublime. Even closer, no Paramore or fall out boy. I don't know who rocksmith+ is supposed to be for but... It's not people that want to play guitar.
Any microphone or better yet audio interface with an "instrument in" jack will work with the game. I'd personally rather not rely on a single use type computerized cable from a game company that doesn't support the game anymore.
Generally it will work. If it's recognized as an audio input or microphone then it will work just fine under Microphone mode, if you want to use it like a RealTone Cable or whatever it was called, you will have to rename that audio input interface and make sure the bitrate and number of channels matches that cable.
Focusrite interfaces have been known to have issues with RS ASIO in general. I never got it to work properly with my Solo 3rd gen but I also haven't tried recently. YMMV.
Ubisoft has announced that people who have the game and official DLCs, will continue to be able to use them after delisting.
And as far as I can tell, the game still works despite not connecting to Ubisoft servers, so Ubisoft would have to release an update to the game purposely to break its offline function (now I wouldn't put it past Ubi to do it but unlikely).
If you have purchased RS2014 you will still be able to use it, and with the DLC installed you will still be able to play custom maps though I presume the amount of submissions will continue to dwindle.