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The gameplay of Rock Band 4 will follow that from previous games in the series: the player or group of players use special instrument-based controllers or microphones to mimic playing the instruments by following scrolling cues on screen and attempt to play through a song and score points. Players score points for successfully hitting notes, earning a scoring multiplier for hitting a continuous series of notes without mistakes, while failure to hit the right notes can penalize the players performance and could end the song prematurely. During the song, certain phrases will be marked with specially colored notes, which if played correctly, will fill the players Overdrive meter. Once sufficiently filled, the player can trigger Overdrive through various means depending on instrument, which doubles their scoring multiplayer.
The main mode for Rock Band 4 will be a career mode which IGN describes as an role-playing game.[3] The players will have the option of what types of gigs they want their band to play, with various risks and rewards that influence: how many fans the group attains per geographic region; what future gigs they will have available; and how much in-game money they earn (which can be spent customizing their bands clothes and instruments). For example, players may opt to have their band take a corporate-sponsored gig, which will earn the band a large amount of in-game money but may impact their bands reputation and limit future venues, while taking on smaller shows will not produce as much money but will increase the bands renown and open more possible gigs. In addition, elements of the players stage presence will impact the rewards from these gigs, which will be based on how well the band performs in unison, such as hitting Overdrive together, drummers completing drum fills, and vocalists improvizing. Fans will be tracked by geopgrahic region,[4]
Players bands will perform Shows, which are a series of songs broken up into a number of sets; an example given by IGN was a Show with 2 sets each containing 2 songs. Some songs in these Shows will be pre-determined but others will be left to be voted on during a short period between songs by the band members; individual members will also have the opportunity to select a song from a limited list during periods of the current song when their musical part is inactive. The available options will be based on what songs the collective band members have in their library and the bands chosen theme, and voting options may include specific songs (including one selected mid-song), or broad classifications such as by genre type, release year, or song length. To aid in the cooperative nature of the game, any scoring multipliers and remaining Overdrive are carried over between songs in Gig lists.[5]
Drums players for Rock Band 4 will be able to count down to start the song as often done by real-life bands.[3] Rock Band 4 will change how the drummer will trigger overdrive: unlike past titles where the drummer would gain a free-form section that they had to then strike a specific pad to activate overdrive which Harmonix found would throw some players off, Rock Band 4 will present one of a random number of pre-created drum fills that fit the timing of the song when the drummer player has Overdrive available. This feature will be backwards compatible with all previous songs in the Rock Band library.[3]
Vocal players will be able to use two- or three-part harmonies as previously used in The Beatles: Rock Band and Rock Band 3, and through contributions from the Rock Band fan community, existing Rock Band songs that feature harmony parts will be updated to include harmonies for free.[3] Higher difficulty settings for vocals allow for freeform melodies where as long as the vocalist is in tune, they can improvise to a degree to add their personal touch to a song. This improvisation is scored separately from the in-tune scoring, thus presenting an additional challenge for this advanced mode.[3]
In an interview with Vice, Sussman stated that the game may not ship with support for asynchronous online play, noting that while it is a highly desirable feature, it is also considered expensive. Sussman commented that if this is not included in the retail release, it may be released as part of future patches to the title.[6]