Written by Songs by Ghost, Babymetal, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Weezer, Static-X and more will appear in a new rhythm game released by former Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane Games.
Stage Tour, a new title from RedOctane Games, is set to come out on PC and consoles in the autumn. Among the team of developers are alumni of the wildly popular Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises.
A new “developer spotlight” trailer was put out over the weekend to coincide with the IGN Live expo, revealing that Ghost’s Square Hammer, Babymetal and Electric Callboy’s Ratatata and Red Hot Chili Peppers multi-Platinum-selling hit Dani California will be on the soundtrack.
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The other songs revealed are Extreme’s Get The Funk Out, Weezer’s Island In The Sun, Static-X’s Terminal Oscillator and Good Kid’s Mimi’s Delivery Service. RedOctane says that this is only a “first taste” of the tracks which will be playable.
Stage Tour will come with its own guitar controller like the rhythm games of old, developed with guitar manufacturer Gibson and its subsidiary Kramer Guitars, and there’ll be replicas of several Gibson models, as well as the Gibson Garage store in Nashville, in-game. There will also be modes for microphones and drum controllers to give players a “full band experience”.
“This is redefining evolution of rhythm games,” board member and popular Guitar Hero streamer Alec Castillo (AKA Acai28) says in the trailer.
Project lead Alex Jeffreys adds: “Our ultimate goal with Stage Tour is not only to bring rhythm gaming back, but bring it back better than before.”
Although rhythm games haven’t been fashionable in some time, the Guitar Hero franchise, launched in 2005, was a pop-culture powerhouse in the mid-to-late 2000s. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock featured a digital avatar of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash on the cover, as well as a battle with the iconic axe-slinger in the game. Songs by the likes of Aerosmith, the Sex Pistols, Slipknot, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper were part of the soundtrack.
In early 2008, Guitar Hero became the first home-console videogame franchise to make one billion dollars US in retail sales. Tie-in titles were developed dedicated exclusively to the careers of such lauded rock and metal bands as Metallica and Aerosmith. Ex-Activision CEO Bobby Kotick claimed in 2015 that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith made Aerosmith more money than the sales of any of the band’s previous albums.
However, the series was put on ice in 2010, following the release of 13 new titles from 2008 to 2010. Critics and journalists have accused Activision, who owned RedOctane from 2006 to 2010, of oversaturating the market, contributing to the franchise’s hiatus.
A new Guitar Hero game, Guitar Hero Live, was developed by Activion’s FreeStyle Games and released in 2015 but disappointed commercially. Activision later laid off many FreeStyle employees and sold the company to Ubisoft. The publisher still holds the rights to the franchise but appears to have no plans for another title.
