Activision Blizzard Inc. announced plans Tuesday to resurrect ‘Guitar Hero,” the once-popular video game franchise that involved players rhythmically tapping guitar-shaped controllers along to music.
The new entry scheduled for release this fall is titled “Guitar Hero Live” and introduces a redesigned guitar, live-action actors and an online music video network to the series.
“We said we would bring it back when we’ve got true innovation,” said Jamie Jackson, creative director at “Guitar Hero Live” developer FreeStyleGames, who previously worked on “Sing Party” and the “DJ Hero” series. “We wouldn’t have come back if we didn’t think we were giving you a new experience. We genuinely feel like we’ve nailed it with innovation.”
“Guitar Hero Live” will cast players as an up-and-coming guitarist in a fictitious band. Instead of playing along with computer-generated characters on screen, wannabe rockers will see a first-person view of their band mates and audiences portrayed by human actors. The virtual crowd will boo or cheer players on, depending if they’re hitting the right notes.
“We want you to feel like a rock star again,” said Jackson. “We want to put you on stage, whether it’s in front of 100 people, 1,000 people or 100,000 people. We want you to experience what it feels like to perform on stage. That’s why we’ve turned the camera around and made it first person. As we were working on this, we actually code-named it ‘Stage Fright.”’
Despite featuring music from such artists as the Rolling Stones, Ed Sheeran and Green Day, “Guitar Hero Live” will forgo digital likenesses of real musicians in favor of actors portraying phony band members. Jackson declined to specify why the game’s made-up acts would sound just like such real-world bands as the Black Keys, Fall Out Boy and the Killers.
FreeStyleGames’ other major switch-up is adding another row of buttons to the top of the guitar’s neck. They eliminated the series’ color-coded, five-button system in favor of mirroring icons displayed on screen, with guitar picks pointing up and down. Jackson said the new six-button configuration would provide veteran players with a bigger challenge.
“When you come back to something as much-loved as ‘Guitar Hero’ and start (expletive) with it, people get a bit nervous,” noted Jackson. “The first time even I saw it, I wondered if we were trying to reinvent the wheel, but I remember when we were playing with the prototype, I was thinking, ‘Holy (expletive). There’s something here.’ It proved itself.”
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