Rocksmith: All-new 2014 Edition – Oasis Song Pack

Rocksmith: All-new 2014 Edition – Oasis Song Pack is a downloadable content (DLC) compilation for the music learning game Rocksmith 2014. This pack allows players to learn and play five iconic songs by the British rock band Oasis—”Wonderwall,” “Champagne Supernova,” “Live Forever,” “Some Might Say,” and “Supersonic”—on a real electric guitar or bass. Each track features a newly crafted, authentic guitar tone, providing an immersive and accurate rendition of the band’s classic sound within the game’s interactive lesson and performance environment.

Rocksmith: All-new 2014 Edition – Oasis Song Pack: A Britpop Time Capsule in the Ultimate Guitar Tutor

Introduction: More Than a Greatest Hits, It’s a Pedagogical Milestone

In the long and winding road of music games, few titles have carved as unique a niche as Rocksmith. While Guitar Hero and Rock Band faded into rhythm-game legend, Rocksmith doubled down on a radical proposition: the best controller is the real thing. Released in 2011 and perfected in 2014, Ubisoft San Francisco’s creation wasn’t about hitting buttons in time; it was about teaching a skill—playing a real electric guitar or bass. Into this ecosystem of dynamic note highways, adaptive difficulty, and meticulous tone crafting, the Oasis Song Pack arrived on January 14, 2014. This wasn’t just five more songs; it was a deliberate archival and pedagogical act. By securing the catalog of the defining Britpop band of the 1990s, Rocksmith 2014 didn’t just add to its library—它 cemented its identity as a legitimate, cross-generational tool for musical education. This review will argue that the Oasis Song Pack represents a crucial nexus in the Rocksmith project: a moment where commercial viability, nostalgic reverence, and pedagogical sequencing converged to create an enduring, if now precarious, artifact of interactive music history.

Development History & Context: The Rocksmith 2014 Ecosystem and the Value of Oasis

To understand this DLC, one must first understand the platform it served. The original Rocksmith (2011) was a proof-of-concept, hampered by a clunky interface and technical growing pains. Rocksmith 2014—the “all-new” edition—was a ground-up rebuild. Ubisoft San Francisco, under the vision of key developers like Paul Cross (noted in community blogs as “@CrossieRS”), focused on three pillars: a vastly improved, lower-latency audio engine; a streamlined, more informative user interface; and a deeper, more structured “Guitarcade” mini-game system for skill-building. The technological constraints were significant. The Real Tone Cable—a proprietary USB interface—was both a marvel of analog-to-digital conversion and a potential barrier to entry. The game had to run on seven-year-old console hardware (PS3, Xbox 360) while processing polyphonic audio with minimal lag.

It was within this context of technical maturation that the decision to license Oasis was made. The early 2010s saw a Britpop revival in the cultural zeitgeist, fueled by Noel and Liam Gallagher’s intermittent reconciliation rumors and the band’s music finally arriving on streaming platforms like Spotify (as noted by community blog The Riff Repeater). For Rocksmith 2014, still building its credibility, Oasis was amasterstroke. They were globally famous, their songs were structurally iconic riffs and chord progressions perfect for teaching, and their association with a specific, guitar-driven “Cool Britannia” era gave the game instant cultural weight. The license secured by Ubisoft was not for one song, but for a curated, career-spanning five-pack: the apocalyptic psychedelia of “Champagne Supernova,” the anthemic hope of “Live Forever,” the driving rock of “Some Might Say,” the explosive debut energy of “Supersonic,” and the folk-rock capo-dependent ballad “Wonderwall.” The inclusion of “Wonderwall,” as highlighted by The Riff Repeater, was particularly significant—it was the pack’s first capo-required arrangement, a deliberate teaching moment for novice players.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Story in the Strumming

Rocksmith 2014 as a whole has no narrative in the traditional sense. Its “story” is the player’s own journey from fumbling beginner to competent musician. The Oasis Song Pack, therefore, contributes not a plot but a thematic and stylistic arc that tells the story of Oasis’s own rise and the player’s parallel skill development.

• “Supersonic” is the tutorial for confidence. Its simple, crunchy power chord riff is a perfect first challenge. Thematically, it’s about youthful abandon and swagger—”I’m feeling supersonic / Give me gin and tonic”—a cry of arrival. For the player, nailing this riff is a first victory, mirroring the song’s own declaration of arrival.
• “Some Might Say” introduces complexity. Its iconic, syncopated opening riff is a classic Rocksmith obstacle, teaching precise alternate picking and rhythm. The song’s lyrics (“Some might say / There’s hope for the underdog”) speak to perseverance, a direct metaphor for the player struggling through the “Mission” mode difficulty curve.
• “Live Forever” is the emotional and technical core. The clean, arpeggiated intro chords teach fingerstyle and chord transitions with a reverent, slow-burn intensity. The explosive, full-band chorus is a release. Lyrically, it is Oasis’s manifesto: “Maybe I don’t want to know the reason why / Lately you don’t talk to me, my darling.” It’s a song about legacy and sonic immortality, a theme that resonates deeply with the act of learning a piece of music to play forever.
• “Champagne Supernova” is the psychedelic masterclass. Its E Standard tuning (A=443Hz, per community data) and sprawling, slide-filled solos teach bending, vibrato, and melodic phrasing over a hypnotic, droning backdrop. The lyric “Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball” becomes a lesson in controlled, emotive lead playing.
• “Wonderwall” is the capo capstone. Its requirement (capo on the 2nd fret) is a necessary evil for the authentic, jangly open-chord sound. This is Rocksmith‘s most direct “educational” moment—forcing the player to learn a fundamental technique. The song’s lonely, questioning narrative (“What’s the use of worrying? / What’s the use of crying?”) stands in stark, beautiful contrast to the bombast elsewhere, showing that guitar proficiency is also for intimate, personal expression.

Together, these five songs create a mini-opera. They take the player from garage-rock simplicity (“Supersonic”) through anthemic perseverance (“Some Might Say” / “Live Forever”), into psychedelic exploration (“Champagne Supernova”), and finally to the intricate, capo-dependent melancholy of “Wonderwall.” It’s a masterclass in sequencing, provided free of charge by the source material’s own arc.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: Authenticity, Tones, and the Burden of “True Tuning”

The Oasis Song Pack did not introduce new gameplay systems to Rocksmith 2014; it operated within and showcased the existing, mature framework. Its contribution was one of implementation and authenticity.

• Core Loop Integration: Each song is meticulously note-mapped. The note highway displays the full arrangement (rhythm, lead, bass) clearly, with color-coded strings (red=low E, yellow=A, blue=D, green=G, purple=B, orange=high E). The adaptive difficulty (“Riff Repeater”) works flawlessly, allowing a novice to start “Wonderwall” on single chords and gradually unlock the full strumming pattern.
• “New Authentic Tone”: This phrase, repeated in every official description (Steam News, MobyGames), is the pack’s key selling point. Ubisoft San Francisco’s audio team did not just use generic amp simulators. They modeled the specific gear of the Gallagher brothers: likely a Vox AC30 or similar for the chime, a Marshall for the crunch, and specific pedals for the fuzz on “Supersonic.” In practice, this means the in-game tone during the “Learn a Song” mode is a credible approximation of the 1994-1997 studio recordings. This is critical for learner motivation—hearing that familiar, jangly “Wonderwall” sound as you form the chords is a profound moment of connection.
• The “True Tuning” Controversy: This pack is infamous in the Rocksmith community for cementing a divisive trend. As highlighted by The Riff Repeater, “Wonderwall” requires a capo, but more broadly, songs like “Champagne Supernova” (A=443Hz) and “Live Forever” (A=449Hz) use detuned “True Tunings.” While authentic to the recordings, this forces players who use standard tuning (A=440Hz) to either retune their guitar constantly or play the song slightly “wrong.” The article’s warning—”if you hate True Tunings… you’ll probably want to avoid this pack”—is not hyperbole. It represents a fundamental tension in Rocksmith‘s design philosophy: absolute fidelity to the source versus player convenience. The Oasis pack leaned hard into fidelity, a choice that defines its legacy for better or worse.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Clash of Aesthetics

Rocksmith 2014‘s world is the stage and the practice room. Its UI is clean, data-driven, and utilitarian—think glowing holographic note charts against dark backgrounds. There is no fictional venue, no character, no story mode. The “world” is the song itself, visualized.

The Oasis Song Pack brings its own aesthetic baggage. The album art for (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Definitely Maybe is iconic: the Waterloo Sunset test card, the iconic color bursts. The game uses no such imagery. The only “art” for the DLC is the standard, minimalist menu icon. This creates a fascinating dissonance. The player’s mind is flooded with the visual memories of 1990s Britpop—suit-wearing Gallaghers, Union Jacks, Brit Awards chaos—while their eyes are fixed on a sterile, blue-and-white interface. The sound, however, bridges the gap. The “authentic tones” are the aural link to that world, triggering the nostalgia that the visual system suppresses. The effect is strangely academic: you are analyzing the DNA of the song (the notes, the structures, the tones) while emotionally connecting to its cultural skin. The sound design of Rocksmith itself—the crisp pick attacks, the precise string noise—becomes the new texture of these old songs.

Reception & Legacy: A Quiet Giant and a Digital Ghost

Critical reception for individual DLC packs like this is nearly non-existent. MobyGames shows no critic reviews for this specific title, and its release was a standard “Product Release” announcement on Steam. Its true reception is measured in community adoption and its long-term impact on the Rocksmith ecosystem.

• Immediate Reception: For the Rocksmith faithful, the Oasis pack was a monumental win. As BioGamerGirl‘s press-release style summary stated, it was about “keep[ing] you playing all through the day!” The inclusion of “Wonderwall”—arguably the most requested song in any guitar tutorial ever—was a coup. Community hubs like The Riff Repeater analyzed its teachings, praising the capo lesson while warning of the tuning hurdles.
• Long-Term Legacy & The Delisting Shadow: The pack’s legacy is now inseparable from the 2023 announcement that Ubisoft would delist all Rocksmith 2014 and its DLC from digital storefronts by October 23, 2023, as documented in the extensive Steam Community thread. As user “Cataleya22” meticulously posted, the Oasis Song Pack itself was slated for delisting on January 12, 2024. This casts a digital extinction event over the pack.
  1. Cultural Preservation vs. Commercial Reality: The delisting turns the Oasis pack from a purchasable tool into a historical artifact. For those who own it, it remains playable forever—a permanent Britpop chapter in their personal guitar-learning library. For those who missed it, it becomes a lost key, a piece of interactive musicology accessible only through… second-hand keys or piracy. This underscores the fundamental fragility of digital media tied to ephemeral licenses.
  2. Pedagogical Benchmark: The pack set a standard for what Rocksmith DLC could and should be: a coherent artist collection, with authentic tones and teaching-sequencing in mind. Later packs (from Weezer to Garbage) followed this template.
  3. The “True Tuning” Precedent: Its embrace of alternate tunings and capos forced the community to adapt, learning to use the game’s “Tuning” menu not as a cheat, but as a necessary lesson in itself—a guitarist’s real-world skill.

Conclusion: A Definitive Verdict on a Digital Relic

The Rocksmith: All-new 2014 Edition – Oasis Song Pack is not a game in the conventional sense. It is an episodic module of musical instruction, a licensed teaching curriculum wrapped in the guise of entertainment. Its place in video game history is not as a landmark of narrative or technical innovation, but as a keystone in the “serious games” movement. It proved that a video game could be a legitimate, scalable conduit for a complex physical skill like playing guitar, using the gravitational pull of iconic popular music (Oasis) as its engine.

Its strengths are its perfect curation of songs, its authentically reproduced tones, and its implicit, brilliant teaching progression from power chords to capo’d arpeggios. Its flaws are the inherent ones of the Rocksmith system: the sometimes-judgmental UI criticism (“Miss!”), the mechanical feel of the note highway versus the fluidity of real playing, and the divisive “True Tuning” philosophy.

Ultimately, its greatest significance is now its mortality. With its January 2024 delisting, the pack has become a ghost in the machine—a perfectly preserved lesson in Britpop guitar that can no longer be acquired. It stands as a bittersweet testament to Rocksmith 2014‘s achievement and a stark warning about the impermanence of digital cultural assets. For those who downloaded it, it remains a portal to 1995, a tool for 2024, and a piece of interactive history that will live forever… in the libraries of the initiated. For everyone else, it is a “Champagne Supernova”—a forever-lost, beautiful thing.