'Rocksmith' is bringin' home the bass on August 14th

Ubisoft's "Rocksmith" is bringing home the bass on August 14th.

Rocksmith, Ubisoft's instructional guitar-playing game released last year in North America, is adding bass compatibility on August 14th, the company announced today.

"When the game came out, bassists were pissed that we came out with a game only for guitar," lead audio designer Nick Bonardi told Polygon at an Ubisoft event in July. "Our fan community is very active. They were very vocal about wanting Rocksmith for bass, and we listened."

A Rocksmith bundle with both guitar and bass arrangements will available for those who have not already purchased the game on October 16th. The PC version of the game will also ship on the same date.

Bass compatibility will be available as downloadable content for players who already own Rocksmith, which will add bass-specific minigames and allow all songs previously released for the game playable on bass. Minigames will teach popular techniques such as slapping and popping and two-finger plucking. Play for bass is identical to guitar, with players pressing frets and plucking strings accordingly to notes scrolling on screen. Players can also emulate play for a 4-sting bass using a 6-string guitar.

While Ubisoft is currently focusing on guitar and bass, the company does want to explore titles like Rocksmith for different instruments in the future. "I don't feel like we've fully tapped the experience to its fullest," said Bonardi, "but depending on what the fans ask for, we can add other things to it. Hypothetically – anything that creates a frequency can be plugged into Rocksmith and played."

Rocksmith released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October 2011 and will release in Europe on October 12th of this year.