New Guitar Hero Revealed With Revamped Hardware and Online Music

Guitar Hero Live will be Activision's attempt to reignite the rhythm game genre with a redesigned peripheral and a new way to access songs. by Justin Haywald on April 14, 2015 Activision today announced the revival of the Guitar Hero franchise with Guitar Hero Live. The announcement itself perhaps isn't too surprising; we've heard rumors about Activision bringing the franchise back for a while and rival Harmonix announced their own re-entry into the genre with Rock Band 4 earlier this year.

But Guitar Hero Live is more than just re-release of the previous games. From the guitar peripheral to the visual direction of the game, to the way music is accessed, Activision is promising a very different experience.

Live is being developed by FreeStyleGames, the same rhythm developer that worked on the DJ Hero franchise, and the company started by reworking the guitar peripheral itself. Instead of five colored buttons reaching down the neck of the guitar, there are six (three on the top and three on the bottom), and the buttons are only black and white.