[4] Additionally, 'pro' options are available for lead and bass, which take advantage of compatible guitar controllers and feature different song layouts, introducing hammer-on and pull-off notes.

[9] In the Jam Stage, players are able to make mashups of several different songs they've purchased, with the tempo and key of each track being adjustable.

Activating Overdrive in Battle Stage will allow players to target opponents with attacks to disrupt their scoring.

These include ones from popular artists (e.g. Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Weezer), as well as original tracks composed by Harmonix and the Epic Games Sound Team.

[5][10] Some songs can temporarily be obtainable for free by completing challenges, like "Holiday" by Green Day, which was available in the summer of 2024.

[1] According to Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopolous, their goal was to create a free-to-play rhythm game available to the millions of players of Fortnite, with songs freely available in a manner that allowed for dynamic and quick expansion to the in-game library, while also being favorable for music publishers in order to aid this.

[25] Alongside the Festival Stage and Jam Stage, Harmonix also developed the "Patchwork" system, which could be used within user-made Fortnite Creative experiences or in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) applications to allow creators to incorporate dynamic music systems into their creations.

[25] Fortnite Festival was revealed on December 2, 2023, during an in-game Battle Royale event titled the "Big Bang."

[28]With the start of Season 3 in late April 2024, Festival was updated to support the Riffmaster and a select few other guitar controllers, along with updating all past and future songs to include unique "Pro Lead" and "Pro Bass" parts that utilize the features of these controllers, similar to Rock Band.

[7] The Battle Stage was added in a June 2024 update, alongside Metallica content for the fourth season of Festival.

[29] In November 2024, Peripheral maker CRKD announced a new controller, the Neo S, that includes a hardware addon featuring five buttons that can be played as the note paths in Fortnite Festival, similar to the peripheral used in the Guitar Hero: On Tour spinoffs for the Nintendo DS.

[4] IGN's Luke Reilly echoed similar thoughts to Taylor and Dustin, believing the lack of features from previous Harmonix games led to "isolating gameplay" that could make Fortnite players into rhythm game fans, but not vice versa.

[10] Reviewers were generally critical of the "Jam Stage" mode,[5][2][10] with Reilly believing it to be a "waste of effort entirely" that was negatively affected by the price of in-game content.

[5] Dustin wrote that, while the inclusion of a "light version" of Fuser stood out, it typically left him wanting to quit playing after a few minutes.

[2] Colantonio believed that the Jam Stage suffered from a lack of interactivity compared to the main game, as well as what he found to be the poor compatibility between songs.