Guitar Hero Looks for a New Gig

RedOctane says the chances are better than good that it will swap the guitar for something else. And there's next-gen talk too.

Guitar Hero seemingly came out of nowhere to capture the gaming consciousness. The sequel, coming later this year, has fans of the series salivating already, and publisher RedOctane says that the chances are good that at some point you'll be able to pick up other instruments too.

"The next logical step within this category is to make other music instrument-based games," RedOctane co-founder Kai Huang told Next Generation recently. "What most people have been asking for and would want next are products that we're likely already working on."

But that doesn't mean that the publisher and Harmonix, the team behind the game, are done with the core of the series. Despite other types of Hero games being "very, very likely", according to Huang, the companies will be looking out for their current fans with not only the sequel but also possibly new guitars to aid their shredding.

"What we are investigating is the possibility of doing additional guitars," he said, "not only in different colours, but potentially shapes, and higher-end guitars that might be more closely aligned with a real guitar, rather than the current Guitar Hero guitar."

As the series moves into the next generation, you can look forward to the network playing an important role. Apart from the obvious online play angle, Huang says his team is looking at content downloads, such new music, characters or skins.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games