Harmonix is getting the band back together.

On Thursday, the music game developer announced Rock Band 4, the first core Rock Band game in five years. It’s due out later this year for the Xbox One and PS4.

The news might come as a bit of a shock to gamers who watched the once-mighty music game genre peter out several years ago, but to Harmonix, it’s about giving the fans what they want. And they want more Rock Band.

“Every time we announce a new game, everybody’s like, ‘That’s cool, but where’s Rock Band 4?’” said project manager Daniel Sussman.

The company is being pretty tightlipped about specific new features and gameplay, but here’s what we know so far.

You can use your old gear

Harmonix is working with Microsoft and Sony to ensure that older Rock Band instruments will work with the PS4 and Xbox One, though it’s not as easy as it sounds. The change in hardware muddies the compatibility waters, but Sussman is hell-bent on making it right.

“As a conscientious human being on this planet, I’d love for you to use the guitar you already have rather than force you to get a new one,” he said.

Sold your plastic instruments at a garage sale? Donated your gear to Goodwill? Smashed your guitar while trying to impress friends with your Pete Townshend impression? Never fear: The new game will indeed come with new mics, guitars, and drums, built by hardware manufacturer MadCatz. The game won’t support the keyboard from Rock Band 3, however, or any of the pro controllers.

And don’t expect the new gear to have a bazillion new buttons.

“Because we want to support legacy controllers, it sort of limits us in terms of the new functionality we would build into a controller,” Sussman said.

You can use your old songs

More than 2,000 songs have gotten the Rock Band treatment, and Harmonix doesn’t want you to have to buy any of them twice. This also isn’t super easy, but the company ensures us that your past song purchases will carry over. If you owned a Rock Band tune in the past, you’ll be able to play it in Rock Band 4.

One caveat: It’s unclear if that works across system families (i.e., from Xbox 360 to PS4 or from PS3 to Xbox One).

It’s going to be somewhat familiar

Harmonix is being coy about significant gameplay changes, but the ability to use old gear to play the new game puts some obvious limitations on innovation. You’ll still be hitting colored notes in time with the music, and Harmonix isn’t planning on making sweeping changes to the visual vocabulary that legions of players understand at a glance.

But it will have some big new features that should fix some of the things they weren’t thrilled with in past Rock Band games.

For one, they’re adding emphasis on encouraging people to play music together rather than just focus purely on their own performance. Even when playing with three other people, Sussman noted, most Rock Band experiences are all about you nailing your notes and not really paying attention to what your bandmates are up to.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if the game design supported and rewarded you for being more aware of what’s happening with the other players? Adding some of those relationship dynamics is a big area for us,” he said.

Sussman also pointed to personal expression as an area for growth.

“When you’re playing a song as a musician, you’re making the song. If you decide to do something that isn’t part of the song, guess what? It happens. You develop a sense of ownership over the song. You insert your personality into it,” he said. “We had a little of that with the drum fills in past Rock Band games, but I think that’s an area where we can do better.”

It’s not going to be followed by a bunch of sequels

Ask ten people why the music game genre collapsed, and you’ll get ten different answers. But I think we can all agree that the flood of Rock Band and Guitar Hero sequels and spinoffs sort of burned us all out.

Harmonix seems aware of this, and isn’t planning on cranking out a new one every year. They see Rock Band 4 as the only Rock Band game released this generation.

“We don’t see a 5, 6, 7, 8 coming,” says Sussman. “We think that through this dialogue with our community, we can build out that core.”

“We want that ‘4’ to mean something.” [Yahoo! News]