Guitar Hero is dead. Long live Guitar Hero! More, long live the rhythm-based video game genre!
In March, Harmonix–the developers behind Guitar Hero (2005), its 2006 sequel, and spinoff Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (2007)–announced the revival of Rock Band with the fourth iteration in that long-running game franchise. Today, Activision followed suit by unveiling an unapologetically bold take on Rock Band‘s competitor, Guitar Hero. That’s right–the title that started the rhythm-based revolution is coming to current-gen consoles and it’s packed with fresh songs, a retooled guitar peripheral, and most exciting, new forms of gameplay.
Jump after the break for all the juicy details.
Right off the bat, you’ll surely notice that Guitar Hero Live, from DJ Hero makers FreeStyleGames, looks incredibly different from its previous iterations. Gone are the cartoonish avatars and flashy, in your face graphics. Replacing these distractions of yesteryear is a completely polished gameplay interface, built from the ground-up for the current cycle of consoles but still with GH fans in mind.
GH Live is the name of the newly installed single player mode. The biggest change you’ll notice here is that gameplay has switched from third to first-person; you are the lead guitarist amongst a band made up of real people. Cartoony characters and fake, animated venues are replaced with real people in front of you (a roaring crowd) and behind you (your bandmates). With GH Live, FreeStyleGames wants Guitar Hero to feel like you’re part of a band playing in front of a fickle crowd like never before. Prior to shredding, you’ll take a journey backstage and get pumped up with your bandmates, catch the eye of attractive roadies, and receive a nod from the stage manager letting you know it’s time to rock. You’ll run onto the stage with the band–remember this is all happening in first person–and take in the rowdy crowd. Jamming to the on-screen notes with perfection? The crowd will react appropriate with cheers and much ovation. Missing notes and messing up? Again, the crowd will react, but this time they’ll turn on you with jeers and they might even throw cups at you. If this sounds familiar, it should; previous GH games similarly let you know when you were performing well or not. This time around, however, the experience is much more heightened now that you’re sandwiched between real people. In addition to the crowd, your perspective will shift around you to receive real-time encouragement from your bandmates, including a lead singer and drummer. The game developer hired actual musicians to partake in these recordings you see during gameplay. Additionally, they brought in extras to serve as the crowd that will be responding to your performance in real-time. All for the sake of making GH Live not only look but feel like the real deal. Stage fright is the feeling the game makers want you to experience and master in the new Guitar Hero. To learn more about how FreeStyleGames filmed these sequences for the game, head on over to Engadget where you’ll hear from the game’s creative director, Jamie Jackson.
Now let’s talk about the newly designed guitar controller. For Guitar Hero Live, FreeStyleGames has evolved the guitar into something that tries to mimic what it feels like to play an actual guitar. Starting to sense a theme here? Replacing the traditional colored five-button scheme are six buttons, three black ones on top of three white ones. The new button layout “makes the game easier to pick up yet more challenging to master,” says the developer. In Easy mode, beginners will simply following the musical note highway on screen and press one of the three corresponding black notes for points. Increased difficulty will incorporate the white notes and soon your fingers will “mirror what it’s like to play chord shapes” and switch strings. After playing so many Guitar Hero games (and even Rock Band ones, for that matter), there will surely be a learning curve here for amateurs and veterans alike; but if I’m remembering correctly, that learning phase is the most exciting and entertaining part! The classic strum and whammy bars are back, as is the “Hero Power” button (formally known as Star Power); and of course, you can still activate Hero Power by tilting the guitar up to the heavens.
Bet you’re wondering about multiplayer, too. Good news: Guitar Hero Live supports local and online multiplayer modes for head-to-head competition with friends. What you should know, though, is that multiplayer is just one mode featured inside a brand new gameplay section called GHTV, “the world’s first playable music video network.” It’s sort of being touted as a streaming service, where you can browse channels and dive in to play songs where the backdrop is the track’s actual music video. You can explore this new playground by yourself, or you can spectate as gamers around the world strum to a growing catalog of songs. “Hundreds of videos” are promised for launch. Not only does GHTV offer a new way to play songs, it also allows for music discovery and that’s something that might just, uh, change the game.
What else? FreeStyleGames has provided a tracklist tease offering up the following artists whose music will be featured across GH Live and GHTV: The Black Keys, Blitz Kids, Ed Sheeran, Fall Out Boy, Gary Clark Jr., Green Day, The Killers, The Lumineers, My Chemical Romance, Pierce the Veil, The Rolling Stones, Skrillex, and The War on Drugs. Also teased is Guitar Hero Live for mobile devices which promises to bring “the full game experience” to handheld displays.
Guitar Hero Live, without a doubt, even with its new look and peripheral design, is all about going back to its roots. Though it was cartoony and child-like, the original Guitar Hero from a decade ago splashed onto the scene and stayed there for a very long time because of its ability to hook music lovers with a unique way to interact with their favorite songs. Activision knew the franchise had overstayed its welcome and so came its official demise in 2011. But now it’s back, and quite possibly better than ever. Instead of simply upgrading the graphics and updating the tracklist, Guitar Hero Live is embracing a more realistic approach to gameplay with “live” bands and crowds and venues that respond to your every move. And with GHTV, a social network with channels and competitions and leaderboards is born and will likely evolve over time as new content gets poured in.
It’s hard to make strict comparisons to Harmonix’s revitalized Rock Band since they didn’t reveal as much about their gameplay. It’s interesting to note, though, that these franchises won’t be directly competing against each other this time around. Rock Band 4, with its guitar controller and drum kit, will decidedly market to a different crowd. Guitar Hero Live, as it returns to its franchise roots, will only support its new guitar controller and that’s it. Though Activision failed to comment on this, it’d be an educated guess to say that its new title will not support previously purchased tracks, game discs, and peripherals since GHL boasts a new note layout both in hardware and software. Rock Band 4, on the other hand, aims to make your dusty guitars and drum sets usable and the majority of your old tracks will come alive again. Will Guitar Hero‘s bold reinvention scare off veterans of the game genre, leaving them to flock to the more familiar Rock Band? It’s hard to say at the moment. My money’s squarely on the idea that gamers will embrace them both–with varying tracks and new ways to play, GH and RB will take over the living room. Again.
Guitar Hero Live is available to preorder today at Amazon; for $99.99 you get the game and one wireless guitar controller. The title comes to Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and PS3 this fall. Below, check out the game’s official reveal trailer, as well as IGN’s exclusive hands-on with the controller.