Guitar Hero (Series)

Guitar Hero: Music Rhythm Game Series

Guitar Hero is a series of music rhythm games first published by RedOctane and distributed by Activision, in which players use a guitar-shaped controller to simulate playing lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous rock music songs.

What is Guitar Hero (Series)?

Guitar Hero is a series of music rhythm games first published in 2005 by Harmonix and distributed by RedOctane. The games feature a guitar-shaped controller used to simulate playing guitar-based music across numerous famous rock music songs ranging from the 1960s to modern rock tracks.

The initial Guitar Hero game was developed by Harmonix and focused only on guitar and bass gameplay across 47 playable songs. Guitar Hero II, developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane in 2006, expanded this to include multiplayer options as well as additional downloadable content.

The series achieved massive popularity upon its initial few entries, but the franchise was taken over by Neversoft starting with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock in 2007, which incorporated multiplayer battles, online multiplayer gameplay, and downloadable content which could be shared across games. Several more Guitar Hero games were published annually afterward, expanding the song library into the thousands and furthering the gameplay's focus on guitar while introducing other instruments like drums, vocals, and keyboard.

The franchise began to decline following Activision taking over the series in 2010, as it focused more on iterations that capitalized on the existing name and introduced additional monetization. The final Guitar Hero game - Guitar Hero Live - was developed by FreeStyleGames in 2015, featuring a redesigned guitar controller and GH Live mode incorporating real crowd footage, but failed to reinvigorate substantial interest in the waning music game genre.

Guitar Hero (Series) Features

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