Brace yourself for a new 'Guitar Hero'
Activision is making a new Guitar Hero game for release this year, according to Kotaku UK. This would be the first Guitar Hero game in four years, after Activision officially called off development of the series in February 2011, following the underwhelming release of Guitar Hero 5. Two people offered the site a smattering of details about a new Guitar Hero, including that the art will be "more realistic" than the franchise's traditional cartoonish style, and the game will include new guitar peripherals. All of this is in development for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, according to the report, and we should see an announcement at E3 in June.
It looks like 2015 may be the year of the music game renaissance: Harmonix recently released new content for Rock Band, the company's own musically delicious franchise, after nearly two years of radio silence. On top of that rather suspicious move, Harmonix sent out a survey asking fans which consoles they owned, which aspects of Rock Band they liked the most, and whether they still owned their old plastic guitars and drum kits. A Harmonix rep told us in January that "hundreds of thousands" of people still plugged into Rock Band every month, and that figure didn't include people playing offline. Curiouser and curiouser.
As for Guitar Hero, Activision offers us the following comment:
"We don't comment on rumor or speculation, but have previously said, that as one of the most beloved entertainment franchises, we would only bring Guitar Hero back if we developed the right innovations to usher the franchise into the new generation of gaming."
At this point, Xbox One and PS4 owners should probably stretch out their fake-guitar-strummin' fingers before E3.
