Mario Party, Just Dance, SingStar and many, many more games come to mind when you think of typical “party games”. But the best of all badly needs a comeback. Where the heck has Guitar Hero gone on PS5, Xbox Series X|S or Steam?
A sluggish drum beat, a simple guitar riff, a beeping from the guitar amp rising in the background. Suddenly the electric bass kicks in, followed by a scratchy singing, “SLOW RIDE, na naa naa na na, na na an, TAKE IT EASY”. Listening to this short sequence from Foghat’s single “Slow Ride” these days always brings a small smile to my face.
I didn’t know this 1975 song as a 13-year-old in 2007. I was just discovering rock music. But Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock changed that. It was the first song I ever played on the iconic guitar controller – and the one I associate with the game the most.
This could also be because I will never forget how I put on my headphones at around 10:30 p.m. (longest bedtime), sat in front of my TV with the PS2 and picked up the guitar controller to listen to my heavy rockers -Skills to improve a bit.
I started Slow Ride and was kind of disappointed – despite the headphones, the song didn’t really hit the ground running. Even when I turned the volume up to maximum, the sound on my wired headset didn’t really turn out great.
I didn’t realize it was because the headphone cord was not plugged into the TV at all until my mother walked into the room, utterly horrified, and asked what the hell I was doing. The sound boomed properly from the TV speakers, but unfortunately not through my headphones.
This session ended there. But many, many more were to follow. Sometimes alone, but often with friends, family and whoever else wanted to chop on the plastic guitar.
Even “World Tour” and “Band Hero”, the offshoots with more instruments like drums and microphone, I bought later. That was always great fun too. Standing in front of the TV with everyone and rocking out properly (even if Band Hero was somehow a bit pop-heavy). Guitar Hero is just a great party game – maybe the best.
But at some point, the Guitar Hero time came to an end for me too. Probably around the time I traded in my PS2 for a newer console. But recently, while on vacation, I stopped by an arcade where there was actually a Guitar Hero machine, on which my girlfriend and I threw “Slow Ride” straight away and tried to break the record.
Unfortunately, we didn’t scratch the top players, but it was still great fun. I was hooked again and asked myself: What actually happened to Guitar Hero?
When the last Guitar Hero was released and what’s going on with a new one
What kind of game is this? If you’ve read the previous text with big question marks over your head, here’s a quick introduction: Guitar Hero is a game where you can play songs using a guitar controller.
The controller has 5 colored buttons at the top of the neck and a touch switch at the bottom of the body. The keys then scroll towards you on the screen according to the song and you have to operate the keys and the touch switch with the right timing – as if you were playing the guitar.
There are also features such as jerking up the guitar to unlock a “rock out” mode that temporarily earns double points or a tremolo on the guitar to make notes vibrate.
The songs on the games come from a wide variety of genres. There are also custom Guitar Hero games based on Aerosmith or Metallica. The repertoire offered many songs, but mainly came from the rock direction – there was pretty much everything from KISS to Guns `n Roses or the Scorpions.
The song “Through the Fire and Flames” by DragonForce, which could be played via the credits at the end of Guitar Hero III, is legendary to this day. It was ridiculously fast and difficult though – check out YouTuber GuitarHeroPhenom here and you’ll know:
When was the last Guitar Hero released? The last “classic” Guitar Hero was Guitar Hero 6: Warriors of Rock, released in 2010. In 2015 “Guitar Hero: Live” was released, with a revised controller. After that, Guitar Hero was largely over and to this day there is little that really compares.
Ubisoft released several offshoots of Rocksmith, but it uses an actual guitar and can act more as a learning platform.
What still reminds me of Guitar Hero in principle is the VR game “Beat Saber”. You put on VR glasses and smash blocks flying towards you with two lightsabers in your hands. It’s somehow related to Guitar Hero in spirit, but ultimately something completely different.
From time to time, Guitar Hero still appears on YouTube or Twitch – but that often falls more into the “odd” category, such as in the example when a streamer simply hummed along the songs to avoid DMCA strikes.
And what about a new Guitar Hero? Unfortunately, things are looking rather bad in that respect – after Guitar Hero: Live the project was buried and production stopped because it was no longer economical.
However, retro is back in fashion and everything comes back eventually anyway – remakes are very popular with developers, see The Last of Us at Summer Game Fest.
And there was a bit of hope at the beginning of 2022: Microsoft boss Phil Spencer talked about the cool IPs they had in the catalog as part of the takeover of Activision. And yes: Guitar Hero was also explicitly mentioned by him.
This is far from an announcement of a new Guitar Hero, but one can hope a little. Who knows – I would at least feel like unpacking the plastic guitar again!
What kind of games have been forgotten that you would like to see a comeback? Tell us in the comments.