Plastic rockstars rejoice: Guitar Hero is coming back

My soul is happy but my fingers are sad to hear that there’s a brand new Guitar Hero coming this year – Guitar Hero Live:

Interesting acting there.

It sounds like the game will be split into two parts: the classic-style Guitar Hero game, which will now have actual music videos in the background instead of scary-looking animated avatars…

…and GH Live. What GH Live actually is isn’t very clear from either the video or Activision’s blog post.

Here’s their description:

GH Live is all about living out your dreams of rock stardom with vivid realism. You take a first-person view as you join real bands and perform for real crowds, whether it be for small clubs or headlining massive music festivals. From getting hyped with your band backstage to closing out your set to a sold out venue, you’ll see and hear it all. But it’s more than just about the sights and sounds, it’s about feeding off the crowd and band as they react in real-time as you play. You’ll see everything from fans cheering along to your perfect note streak to worried glances from your band as you start to lag behind.

That sounds a whole lot like full motion video, but we’ll see.

The new controller’s pretty swish:

As you can see, instead of 5 brightly-coloured buttons, it’s got two sets of three. Which means people who were amazing at the last game will have to start again with the rest of us! Hooray, we can all get RSI together. (Not sure about that ‘Hero Power’ bit, either).

Artists with songs in the game include The Black Keys, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Green Day, Ed Sheeran, The Killers, Skrillex, The Rolling Stones and The Lumineers. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and Gerard Way (formerly) of My Chemical Romance attended the launch event, although if you ask us it’s a bit ropey getting Gerard (the singer) to do the guitar bit.

Given that the world has changed enormously since the last Guitar Hero game 5 years ago, the full game is very sensibly coming to tablets and smartphones. Well, “select mobile devices.” We’re guessing that won’t include £75 Androids or the Galaxy S3.

Guitar Hero Live will also be available on PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and the Wii U. That’s a whole lot of consoles, and it’s an interesting choice to release it on last-generation hardware too. Presumably it doesn’t require insane amounts of graphics processing, then – although perhaps more than the original Wii can handle.

Guitar Hero Live UK price and release date

The game will be out worldwide this Autumn (not Spring as stated in the video) for a price of $99.99 (about £68).