Guitar Hero 7 canceled - Report
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Source says Activision killed development of guitar-focused game in 2011 after rocky production cycle, overreaching ambitions.
A new Guitar Hero game was in development at Activision subsidiary Vicarious Visions until early 2011, when the publisher killed the project mid-development, a source has told Kotaku. The game was going to be different than 2010's most recent entry Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, in that it was planned as a return-to-roots guitar-focused game. No compatibility for drums, bass, microphones, or any other peripherals was planned. It was all about the guitar.
The plastic guitar for Guitar Hero 7, or whatever it was to be called, was going to have the classic Guitar Hero buttons on the neck (as well as a new button) and six actual strings where the strum bar was in past games.
Prototypes of the guitar were made, the source said, but they did not meet performance expectations and proved too expensive to produce.
"The strings were unresponsive and loose, and the guitars cost a fortune to make," the source said. "No one could figure out a way to make it so your average Joe could buy one."
The source said development on the project began well, with an early demo for the game proving to be ambitious and compelling. Every time music changed in a significant way in a song, the venue's aesthetics would change, too. This was one of the core ideas for the new game. However, the project went south quickly when real development actually began, the source said.
Vicarious Visions elected to build Guitar Hero 7 from the ground up, deciding to forgo the series' familiar art style and characters for an entirely new approach. Additionally, the studio's "big ambitions" across the board proved too far-reaching to follow through on. What's more, the soundtrack was not up to snuff.
"When the songs started coming in, a great sense of dread came about everyone with an active brain," the source said. "The game had all of the worst hits from the 1990's. They realized that, with our lack of budget and time, they couldn't get quality music so they bought bargain basement music like 'Closing time' and 'Sex and Candy.' There were some songs in there that had been used at least three times in the Guitar Hero franchises before."
Guitar Hero 7 saw its last days when Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg visited the studio. He saw the progress that had been made and after he returned from his trip, development was halted and members of the development team were let go.
The most recent entry in the Guitar Hero series was 2010's Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. Activision officially put the franchise in hiatus in 2011, making clear that Guitar Hero was not dead, but rather taking time to reinvent itself before returning.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
133 comments
The rhythm genre is dead. Activision certainly played its part in making that happen with the milkage they did.
Milked-it-to-death! It definitely could have had a great legacy if not for short-term thinking.
1 Like I miss when the Guitar Hero was at its prime. It could've been a long lasting franchise if they didn't release 5 games in the same year. Wasted potential.
3 Like Nothing to do with Activision saturating the market with these titles when they took it on and killing it off?
2 Like @neogeta8 These are exactly the sorts of games that dlc SHOULD be used for: Rock Band, FIFA, NBA 2K_, yearly releases of the same game using the same engine with some minor content changes. Why not just release one version per console gen and then release content packs and roster updates? I mean I know WHY, but a 'new' full game every year? FFS
1 Like Taking out the vocals would have meant there was no way I'd be getting it. My fiancee likes to singa....lol.
Glad they did not make it then. I don't think many people would have been happy playing something like rocksmith.
3 Like Activision quit releasing yearly installments of Guitar Hero to focus on much larger and ambitious projects like yearly installments of Call of Duty. There is absolutely no creativity whatsoever left in that company and it sounds more like a video game sweatshop where developers are worked to death.
1 Like I really don't see the appeal of Guitar Hero now that Rock Band exists and it has pro instruments... Rock Band does everything Guitar Hero does better, with more instruments and more variety...
If any new game in this genre is to be relased, it should be a Rock Band 4 game with fully keyboard support and better tablature for pro modes... Cause it is a pain to play expert pro keys and expert pro guitar with the existing tablature...
2 Like I liked the music genre but with a guitar hero coming out every year, rock band, dj hero, band hero, etc there was just too much for people too keep up with.
I had no idea they were even making another of these, and that's probably for a good reason. Good riddance. I was never remotely interested in these. Then again I have absolutely no disire to play any music(unless it's on the piano).
1 Like Activision killed this series, just like they're killing CoD. I thought GH III was awesome, and I bought the GH 2/GH Aerosmith double pack just a few days ago. The problem is that they were putting them out so fast I lost track of them. It was like there was a new GH game every time I went to the store. It's like, "Well, the newest one is coming out in just a few months, so why waste money on the current "new one"?" One game every two years would've been enough. Or just make more band specific games. Either way, this series was a victim of constant milking by Activision.
11 Like All Activision had to do was release Greatest Hits albums of artist for $20 - $30. They would have had a sustainable platform, and the days of the record store could come back in the form of video games. Instead they insisted on $60+ compilations no body wanted.
1 Like Never played anything from this series and don't care for plastic guitars that clack louder than keyboards straight out of the 80's, but it is sad to see something that played a huge role in the genre back in the day just vanish off the face of the industry. You can only reuse the same base concept so many times before its overdone; at least Pokemon has done more to change things up with each new entry in the series.I enjoyed Vib Ribbon on the PSX much more anyway; that game deserved more iterations, it was an amazing music experience that allowed you to play the game with your own music CDs and a normal dual shock controller. It's still easily more challenging than anything Guitar Hero offered, especially if you pop in some metal tracks. =P The game is as easy to pick up on as it is difficult to play; you don't get that kind of difficulty out of most rhythm titles these days.
1 Like So they were basically making an entire game based on the Rock Band Pro controller...
Guitar Hero just doesn't get it. These games should be party games with an entire band. Why would I play this game by myself when I could take the time spent playing it and instead actually learn to play a real guitar
@ziproy I guess the artist formerly known as Prince (or whatever he's calling himself) was right.
2 Like @ziproy No, the RB Pro mode teaches you to really play the song. This was just a regular guitar controller with more buttons.
4 Like I didn't think a new game was actually in development, I thought Activision was just kidding.
2 Like Activision ran GH into the ground by releasing a game every year. In a couple years COD will meet this fate. COD is garbage and I stopped playing COD after MW3. No improvements from year to year is why COD will end up R.I.P!! Activision ain't getting my hard earned $$$ for COD no more. It's pathetic that COD has lasted this long.
@BryanParksSuper umm if you say you stop playing cod after 4 more mw2 or something it might be more impressive but Mw3 isnt that far away. Cod isn't that bad or that great it just one of the go between game that you play when you get bored of playing other game.
2 Like I like Rockband, but I think I might give Rocksmith a try. Some electric guitars are cheap enough so that they're the price of a plastic Rockband guitar.
1 Like I remember playing Guitar Hero 2 and found it pretty fun. But then they kept releasing one after each year with marginal improvement, and even more with the band-specific games like Metallica.
Then I realized they were just milking the damn thing and I didn't want to spend $60 every year for what is basically a new song pack.
3 Like @Hendrix247 @Cedar-Teeth You can play Metallica songs in Rock Band. I don't see how a band specific entry to Guitar Hero is better than Rock Band, which has over 1000 songs.
@PlasmaBeam44 @Hendrix247 @Cedar-Teeth
GH: Metallica had the double kick-pedal...and that's all it had going for it.
1 Like Attn: morons: stop making big plastic pieces of crap, nobody cares.
Oh... They aren't making it? Well then, mission accomplished.
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Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
- Publisher(s): Activision
- Developer(s): Neversoft Entertainment
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