Getting the most out of Rocksmith+ with a VPN

Hello Rocksmith fans!

Since the first rhythm game with licensed music, we’ve learned licensing is hard, and as time has gone on, there’s a lot of ways it’s gotten harder, but we’ve quickly found out that streaming is nightmare difficulty. Rocksmith+ has a plethora of some of your favorite songs somewhere in it, and if you can’t find it, it might not just be because of the oft-lamented navigation and discovery, but because it’s available, but not where you are.

One of the simplest ways to discover if and where a song is available is referencing skippern’s scraper database. However, the UI is a work-in-progress, and the database relies on scrapes from users – see how you can help here.

Update: as of June 6th, 2024 the Metallica content is available worldwide!

Before Karmoca gets into songs, let’s get into how to use an VPN with Rocksmith+

Ubisoft SF/Rocksmith+ does not officially endorse the use of VPNs with Rocksmith+

We do not recommend signing up for an Ubisoft account with an VPN to get around the unavailability of the service in your region (see: Argentina)

There are many choices for VPN, I know that Elison uses NordVPN* and I (Elliott) use ExpressVPN so let’s talk about that first:

With an VPN you have two choices, if you don’t care about what is happening when you are playing RS+ you can just flip it on and have all your traffic go through the service. I wouldn’t recommend this but if only RS+ is open it shouldn’t make much of a difference. If you are planning on doing other things while playing Rocksmith+ (like streaming for example) you want to look into split tunneling.

Here’s how that works (with ExpressVPN)

Make sure you allow all the applications associated with Rocksmith+
Choose a region outside of your own (Mexico and Colombia are favourites for most of the locked content from outside North America)
Turn on the VPN
Launch Rocksmith+

You can also use the Rocksmith Workshop outside of your region if someone from the region you want to chart from sends you an RSW file… That explains why that toymachinesh guy has actually charted a bunch of songs, huh…

If you are using Rocksmith+ on mobile, it should be even easier. Just download the VPN app of your choice and run it on your device and that should be about it…

Okay, but I’m already paying for a subscription, now I have to pay for an VPN as well?!

There are some free options and of course (for the more technically adventurous users) there’s also OpenVPN.

Brasil, France and Sydney (hello, Steve Vai) are your best bets for this one ☝️

Thankfully when it comes to VPN and Rocksmith+ it doesn’t need to be that heavy duty of a connection and in some cases you can probably get away with turning off your VPN once you have your first Metallica song loaded up.

The Songs of the World!

Here’s a brief overview of some of the big artists hiding in a region you can access via VPN! Keep in mind as time goes on this might end up inaccurate due to shifts in licensing – Rocksmith+ briefly had Kaiser Chiefs (RIP) for a few months and Kiss from a Rose went from heavily restricted to widely available in recent drops. Still, let’s get into it.

Metallica just got a big song drop, a lot of folks have been waiting for. But it’s NOT available in the US or Canada! It IS available in most of Europe. Except Whiskey in a Jar, it’s the opposite? Licensing is hard.

Megadeth has a few songs from their debut album available in France, but they’re not all charted and I hear they’re demo quality. There were recent covers of Hangar 18 and Symphony of Destruction that were more widely available, hopefully more and masters come in time.

A few covers done by Ozzy Osbourne are widely available, but live versions of Crazy Train and Suicide Solution are also only available in France.

One I didn’t discover was in the library at all until recently was Quiet Riot – and for good reason, turns out their stuff is largely untouched and only available in Italy.

Some eighties metal is more widely available – Ratt’s three songs (including the two from 2014 DLC), Autograph, some of Alice Cooper’s hits (hopefully more coming!), Play With Me by Extreme, Krokus and Merycful Fate are all pretty accessible, you’ll find them more places than you won’t.

While highly requested classic metal acts are some of the biggest exemplars of the struggle with region locking, they’re not the only ones.

In classic rock, Boston is heavily represented in the library, and thankfully their biggest hits are widely available, but some of the lesser known songs from later offerings are a bit harder to pin down, NOT available in the US or Canada.

In new wave, Safety Dance by Men Without Hats has a very fancy synth chart, but mostly in France.

In funk, Wild Cherry has a handful of songs including Play That Funky Music from 2014, but NOT in the US or Canada, mostly Europe.

In more modern examples, Opeth has quite a chunk of songs that are NOT available in much of Europe, largely being US and Canada. Dillinger Escape Plan also has a huge cache of songs pretty much just in Mexico/Colombia. And Steve Vai is only available in Australia and New Zealand. More are uncharted than charted for each, but there’s definitely some authentic arrangements to play on each if you do catch a plane to those locales.

On the poppier side of indie and alternative sounds, HAIM is also only available in Mexico, and a live version of Hands Clean by Alanis Morrisette is also only available in France.

While things have become more widely accessible with bigger names being targeted, say it with me – licensing is hard – and thus not everything by these artists make it everywhere.

While most of the Muse songs (all from 2014) are widely available, Knights of Cydonia and Supermassive Black Hole seem to be limited quite more than the others, for sure seen in the US but not in many other places.

Linkin Park had a huge drop of hits as well, but you might have to travel around to find all of them depending where you are – New Divide in particular is tough to locate even amongst its peers, Mexico being the surest bet.

If you’re gonna pay for a VPN, the goal is to make sure it has a Central or South American location – despite the product not being available for purchase in these countries, they have some of the largest offerings of songs available in the library. But as you’ve seen above, there’s no Shrangi-La, if you’ve got as eclectic of taste as the library offers, you’re gonna hafta bounce around some, and even if you have pretty narrow preferences similar things get region-locked differently in a lot of weird ways.

Did you know? Licensing is hard. Still, just reference what’s available where and you can make every session familiar or new, challenging or laid-back, whatever your style is.