First Guitar Hero IV Details Shed
By Alex Petraglia on Monday, May 12, 2008 at 6:00 PM EST
The June issue of Game Informer has an exclusive cover story on the fourth major entry in Activision’s top-selling Guitar Hero franchise.
Guitar Hero IV will follow closely in the footsteps of Rock Band, offering new instruments including a bass, microphone, and six-piece drumset that includes two cymbals. It is unknown whether or not the Guitar Hero IV instruments and Rock Band instruments will be cross-compatible.
Due to the recent falling-out between Gibson and Activision, Guitar Hero IV’s guitars will not be licensed and instead will be custom-designed by the developer. They will incorporate a currently unrevealed feature that will “directly impact the way you play Guitar Hero in the future.”
Rock stars can step into the studio to create their own songs and share them with other players online courtesy of the newly minted Guitar Hero Tunes service, but these tracks will be devoid of vocals.
Players will even be able to design their own musicians, album art, and instruments on-screen from scratch.
While no song titles were yet confirmed, Van Halen, The Eagles, Sublime, and Linkin Park will all be making appearances on the tracklist. All songs in the game will be master tracks.
The game is in development at Red Octane and Neversoft and will be arriving on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii by year’s end. Look for more details and the first media in the coming weeks.
Activision has two other upcoming Guitar Hero franchise titles, including the ‘On Tour’ mobile version and the Aerosmith edition.