Guitar Hero vets RedOctane reveal their new music recreation

RedOctane Games, a relaunched model of one of many studios behind the very first Guitar Hero, has shared a first trailer for its new music recreation, Stage Tour. The authentic RedOctane was shut down by Activision in 2010, and solely lately reformed below Embracer Freemode to create a brand new music recreation franchise in August 2025.

Stage Tour is playable solo or with different gamers in a band, according to RedOctane, and helps inputs from a keyboard and mouse on high of the anticipated guitar, drums and microphone equipment. The studio plans to primarily supply the sport digitally, however hopes to additionally promote a bundle with a guitar controller and a obtain code as a result of “that just feels right.” As far as ongoing assist goes, whereas video games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band included a set tracklist and assist for tune DLC, it appears like RedOctane might be taking an strategy extra impressed by Epic’s common updates to Fortnite. “The plan is regular special events that are more than just music drops,” RedOctane writes. “Real moments. Real themes. Real updates. We want to evolve the game alongside the fans who support it. Improve it. Expand it. Keep it alive.”

RedOctane and Harmonix created the primary Guitar Hero in 2006, earlier than RedOctane was acquired by Activision to proceed the franchise in 2006, and Harmonix went on to start out the Rock Band sequence. Development of Stage Tour is at present being led by RedOctane, with Eidos Montréal serving to with movement seize and QA, and Third Kind Games offering further improvement assist. Conveniently, RedOctane’s proprietor Embracer Freemode additionally already owns CRKD, a online game accent maker that has expertise constructing controllers for rhythm video games.

Sign-ups to play an alpha of Stage Tour will open quickly, and RedOctane plans to “kick off closed alpha testing late spring/early summer.” We’re long gone the height reputation of video games like Guitar Hero, however rhythm and music video games by no means went away. Players have had Clone Hero and extra official experiences like Fortnite Festival to get their Guitar Hero or Rock Band repair, however Stage Tour might be a greater than welcome third possibility when it launches later this 12 months.