New Guitar Hero to release this year, report says

Guitar Hero may be primed for a comeback tour, minus the cartoony visuals but with all-new plastic instruments. Kotaku UK cites two anonymous sources in a new report that indicates Activision's long-dormant rhythm series will resurface on PS4 and Xbox One this year.

The game will allegedly be revealed at E3 in June, where we'll get our first look at its "more realistic" approach to performers and audiences. We'll also likely see its new guitar peripherals, which you'll have to buy all over again if you threw out your old ones in the five-year gap since Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. Though you might have to buy new ones, anyway, depending on whether the old ones are still compatible… we'll just have to wait until E3 to find out.

Activision said it would only consider bringing back the franchise "if we developed the right innovations to usher the franchise into the new generation of gaming" when reached for comment by Kotaku UK.

As you may be aware, both Neversoft and RedOctane, Activision's former flagship Guitar Hero studios, have since been closed or folded into other developers. The new project is reportedly being created by one of Activision's West Coast studios.

It apparently won't be alone in the plastic guitar revival: Harmonix (the original creator of the Guitar Hero franchise) has all but confirmed it's working on a new Rock Band for the current generation of consoles.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.