With yesterday’s teaser acting as the warm-up, Activision has lifted the curtain on the all-new Guitar Hero Live, a first-person rock simulator heading to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this fall.
Built with the GoPro generation in mind, this reboot of-sorts roots the crowd-surfing action from a first-person perspective, with developer FreeStyleGames going the extra mile to incorporate a tangible sense of presence. In doing so, the studio has ensured that the crowd retains its dynamic tenets from pervious installments, though GHL will serve up constant feedback to players about their in-game performance, whether it’s members of the audience screaming “You Suck!” or your bandmates encouraging you to do better.
Not only that, but Guitar hero Live won’t support backwards compatibility with older controllers, as the latest installment will introduce budding musicians to a new-fangled peripheral that swaps out the six button set-up for a sleeker design with a three-by-two button layout.
In terms of in-game features, a new mode called GHTV will give players the opportunity to play through real music videos from the charts, competing with friends and online comrades as they climb the leaderboards. In this sense, Guitar Hero Live boasts enough new-fangled features for a franchise that has admittedly falling by the wayside in recent years.
Speaking to The Guardian, Activision’s Tyler Michaud — Senior Director of product management — touched upon the evolution of the series and how the music industry as a whole has changed during Guitar Hero‘s five-year hiatus.
“Guitar Hero created this whole music game phenomenon; it’s one of the first titles to really transcend video games as a category. However, our last release was in 2010 – just think about all that’s changed in that time. We’ve had a new console cycle and people are much more connected now.
“Music has changed a lot too. In 2010, I was walking around with an MP3 player in my pocket, which held a lot of music, but it was still a contained selection. Now if you want a particular track you just get it – from the cloud, from digital services, form wherever. The festival scene has blown up too, the sheer numbers of people who are going out and experiencing music – the breadth of the bands playing at big events. It has really widened now and we’re reflecting that. This is the reinvention of Guitar Hero.”
Guitar Hero Live will make its way onto PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this fall. We’ll likely hear much more about Activision’s reboot during E3, so stay tuned for more updates.
