15 years later, the Guitar Hero studio that Activision acquired and killed is back and teasing a spiritual successor to the rhythm game that put it on the map: "They said the era of 5-fret music games was over"

RedOctane Games, one of the two studios responsible for the creation of Guitar Hero, is back from its ignominious death under Activision and already teasing a spiritual successor to the legendary rhythm game series.

The new RedOctane is "focused solely on advancing the rhythm game genre combining the past with the future," according to a press release. The announcement continues, "The team has been busy in pre-production over recent months and has now officially entered production on its debut rhythm-based title, which is expected to be announced later this year."

This news was first teased yesterday by accessory manufacturer CRKD, which was founded by OG RedOctane co-founders Charles and Kai Huang. That teaser included the line "they said the era of 5-fret music games was over," which you can very easily read as a promise to the long-suffering Guitar Hero fandom.

The Huang brothers are joining a "special advisory board" for the new RedOctane, with the studio headed up by Simon Ebejer, who served as production director on multiple Guitar Hero titles when the series was being developed at Neversoft.

"This game won’t be Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Guitar Freaks or Rockband," the devs say in a message to fans. "This is something new. A rhythm game built with love, by people who care, with the community at its core in this fast-changing modern world we live in. We firmly believe the expert here is the community and a new generation of development talent, the folks that have kept the lights on these last few years."

Official Studio Launch Trailer • RedOctane Games - YouTube

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Guitar Hero's development lineage is pretty messy, but the series began when RedOctane approached Harmonix to develop a guitar-based rhythm game similar to Konami's Japan-only arcade title Guitar Freaks. After Guitar Hero became a hit, Activision acquired RedOctane and the rights to the series, while Harmonix went on to expand the concept and create the Rock Band series.

Under Activision, RedOctane largely handled Guitar Hero's instruments while former Tony Hawk studio Neversoft developed the games themselves. The series remained popular for some time, but with four main entries, numerous music packs, and the spin-off DJ Hero titles all released in four-year span – plus the competing Rock Band series also filling store shelves with plastic instruments – rhythm gaming fatigue soon set in, and Activision shut down RedOctane after the launch of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock in 2010.

Guitar Hero Live in 2015 marked a brief comeback for the series under Activision, but even that was short-lived. These days, the spirit of Guitar Hero lives in various fan projects like YARG and Clone Hero, as well as the Harmonix-developed Fortnite Festival. CRKD had been teasing a Fortnite Festival-compatible guitar controller for ages, but it seems those plans have evolved into something much larger.

I was an absolute rhythm gaming sicko in Guitar Hero's heyday, though I soon hitched my wagon to Rock Band when the big split happened. That said, I couldn't be happier to see a real revival for Guitar Hero happening in the modern era. My closets full of plastic instruments deserve a proper replacement, after all.

The best rhythm games are timeless.