One of the most popular music genre games Guitar Hero is back from a long hiatus and will feature in an all new form – as a first person game with a new guitar. Activision has announced Guitar Hero Live will be coming this fall to consoles and mobiles. Developed by FreeStyleGames, the studio behind DJ Hero, has been working on the game for the last two years.
Guitar Hero Live‘s controller does away with old bright coloured keys for two rows of three buttons placed on top of each other. On screen, Guitar Hero keeps the classic highway setting with icons tumbling down until a point to hit the corresponding button along with the strum. Old version Guitar Hero games had notes fall in five positions and colours. The new Guitar Hero Live has notes fall in just three positions: left, middle and right, and two colours: black and white. The bottom row on the controller of three buttons represents white and the top row represents black.
A new feature to be introduced is the Guitar Hero TV, a new 24-hour playable music video network that continually updates with new releases and classic songs. Players are able to jump on whenever they want to compete with friends and other global players as they play along to the growing library of songs. It will be interesting to find out how GHTV interacts with any downloadable content plans Activision and FreeStyleGames have for Guitar Hero Live.
The third-person style has been ditched by FreeStyleGames, along with the cartoonish audience which has made way for live-action footage viewed from a first-person perspective. The live-action footage, shot by FreeStyle, makes up the entire game.
Activision has yet to announce the Guitar Hero Live track list in full, but we do know the $99 base game includes songs by The Black Keys, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Gary Clark, Jr., Green Day, Ed Sheeran, The War on Drugs, The Killers, Skrillex, The Rolling Stones, The Lumineers, Pierce the Veil and Blitz Kids and more. And there are a variety of venues, “from the smallest club stage in front of a hundred people, to the massive main stage of an outdoor festival in front of a hundred thousand people”, Activision said.