Hey everyone!



Rock Band Rivals is going strong a month in, with thousands of Crews competing against each other to climb the leaderboards. For those of you new to this, hi! When you first jump into Rivals, you can make a Crew for yourself and your friends. Up to 10 people can play in one Crew, pitting their combined skill and time against other Crews, competing within one of several ever-shrinking ranks. Week-to-week, you can place anywhere from your beginning in Bronze to your peak in the Bloodstone Tier, a tier so exclusive that there’s currently a mere FIVE Crews with the distinction.



You move through those ranks by playing Weekly Challenges. Every week, we release a new Challenge based around a theme. Previous Challenges have focused on things like animals, the ‘80s, and even the letter C. If you play a song that falls under the umbrella of the Challenge, you earn XP for your group. Alongside that, three of the applicable songs are Spotlight Songs, where the playing is focused more around skill. The better you do, the higher you place.



We’re doing something a little different with our next Rock Band Rivals Weekly Challenge this…week, so we figured we’d do something a little different in how we announce it. It’s starting at a unique time (2PM EST Wednesday afternoon), and some of the details are a first for Weekly Challenges.



First off, the name, of course. The Weekly Challenge for 11/23-11/30 is called Green with Envy. The theme is bands with colors in their names. Any band with a color in their name will have their Rock Band songs apply as Theme Songs, wherein playing will reward you skill-based XP for your Crew. Infinitely repeatable, your sum total for this part focuses around playtime.



Spotlight Songs, the other half of Rock Band Rivals Weekly Challenges, are based around skill. You’ll be directly compared, instrument to instrument, point to point, against other Crews on the same three songs. You want to do the very best you can, and replays are for attempts to do better.



The Spotlight Songs for Green with Envy will be…

The Black Keys – “Fever”

Green Day – “Still Breathing”

White Denim – “At Night in Dreams”



As you can see, Green Day’s “Still Breathing” represents the first time we’ve had a Spotlight Song not be featured on the Rock Band 4 disc soundtrack. A brand-new DLC release, the latest hit single from Green Day seems the perfect opportunity to start branching out. We’ll be watching to see how well you all can do on a new song that you haven’t had time to play before now! Have fun this week!



And as a quick aside, we’re also pushing out the previously discussed XP changes TODAY. Yeah, it’s already good to go! If you have no clue what we’re talking about, you can find the info here, but the short version is XP gains are per second now and also decay with song repeats, encouraging you to explore your libraries!