Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is a 2010 rhythm game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It is the sixth main installment, the eleventh overall installment in the Guitar Hero series and the final title in the Guitar Hero series to be developed by Neversoft. The game was released in September 2010 for PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. Like the previous entries in the series, it is geared towards playing in a four-person band experience, including lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The game is available as a standalone title, allowing players to use existing compatible instrument controllers, and as a bundle that provides these controllers.
Warriors of Rock shares core gameplay elements with its predecessors, but introduced a new story mode in which the player must recruit eight characters—each with a unique ability that modifies the mechanics of the game—to help defeat an antagonist known as "The Beast". The storyline also incorporated Rush's seven-part "2112", as well as "Sudden Death", a new song performed by Megadeth to serve as its culmination (the song would later be included in Megadeth's following album, TH1RT3EN). Warriors of Rock carried over core gameplay and multiplayer functionality introduced by Guitar Hero 5, including per-song bonus challenges and the ability to use power-ups from the story mode in standard gameplay.
Warriors of Rock received mixed to positive reviews from gaming journalists: while critics felt that Warriors of Rock would appeal best to long-time fans of the Guitar Hero franchise, some felt that the overall soundtrack was weaker than that of past installments due to its lack of focus and use of lesser-known songs and artists. The game's "Quest Mode" was met with a similarly mixed reaction, with some critics considering it a notable change over the career modes of previous Guitar Hero games and praising certain highlights, such as the "2112" segment, but criticizing the pacing of the storyline and how its songs were organized.
Sales of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock were weaker than those of Guitar Hero 5, with combined sales of the game and DJ Hero 2 through the end of 2010 being 63% lower than the sales of Guitar Hero 5, DJ Hero and Band Hero through the end of 2009. Initial shipments of Warriors of Rock were also bundled with a copy of Soundgarden's compilation album Telephantasm; based on its distribution with copies of the game, Telephantasm became the first album to receive a Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America based on distribution alongside a video game. As a result of the underwhelming sales, also credited to the oversaturation of the music game market, the Guitar Hero series was put on hiatus until the release of the 2015 reboot, Guitar Hero Live.
Gameplay
As with previous games in the series, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is a rhythm game, allowing up to four people play in a band on vocals, lead and bass/rhythm guitar, and drums, to use special instrument controllers to simulate the playing of rock music. In general, the goal for each player is to match scrolling note gems that correspond to that instrument's part in the given song to score points; the guitar and bass player must hold down the appropriate colored buttons on the controller and then use the strum bar as the notes pass over a marked zone; the drummer must strike the matching drum pads on the controller when the notes pass, and the vocalist must match the relative pitch of the song's lyrics as guided by phrase markers. Successfully striking notes earns points and boosts the player's performance meter; missing notes will cause this meter to drop. When playing by one's self, if the performance meter should empty, the song will end and require the player to restart it; when playing in a band, the remaining band members must play well enough for a limited time to "revive" a player that has fallen out due to an empty performance meter, or else the whole band will fail the song. Prior to the start of a song, each player can select one of five difficulty levels: Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert, with a sixth difficulty of Expert+ available to some songs on the drums which introduces a double bass pedal. Harder difficulties have characters with high note densities and more difficult playing techniques; each player can select their own difficulty to play.
For guitar and bass players, the players are given the opportunity to play single notes or chords, both as single notes or sustained, during which the players must continue to hold down the fret button(s) for the extent of the sustain. Some charts provide the ability to hold down one sustained note via its fret button while strumming additional notes. Warriors of Rock also provides simulated hammer-ons and pull-offs, where, after striking one note, specifically marked notes can be played by fingering the correct buttons but without strumming. There are also note portions of some songs where notes appear semi-transparent relative to normal notes; these notes, introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour, can be played simply by tapping the correct buttons on the controller without strumming or using a touch-sensitive "slider bar" below the fret buttons, if the player is using a World Tour controller. Bass players can play open chords by strumming without holding any fret buttons. Warriors of Rock introduces sustained open chords for bass players, although unlike other sustainable notes, does not require you to hold down the button required to execute the note initially. Drum players, when using velocity-sensitive drum kits, may be presented with both ghosted notes or notes with a shield icon over them; these represents drum notes that should be struck softer or harder than normal, respectively, to score more points. Drum players can also attach a second bass drum pedal, necessary for certain songs in the "Expert+" difficulty.
If the player successfully matches a number of consecutive notes correctly, they boost their individual scoring multiplier up to a maximum 4x value; missing a note will reset to the multiplier back to 1x. Throughout each song's respective charts for the instruments are special highlighted phrases; completing all the notes in this phrase, and for guitar/bass players, using the whammy bar on marked sustained notes, fills part of a Star Power meter. When this meter is at least half full, the player can activate Star Power by performing special actions on their controllers: either tilting the guitar controller upward briefly or pressing the Star Power activation button for guitar and bass; striking two pads simultaneously on the drums; and either double tapping the microphone or pressing one of the buttons on the game console's regular controllers for vocals. When Star Power is activated, the overall band scoring multiplier is increased for a limited time until the Star Power meter is drained. After completing a song, the band is awarded a number of stars based on the overall score; in normal modes for Warriors of Rock, up to six stars can be earned; the final being achievable only through zero misses and zero extra strums.
A major addition in Warriors of Rock is the use of special powers that come from special "warrior" forms of pre-defined characters that are unlocked through the game's Quest mode. These powers alter certain aspects of the core gameplay; one character allows for the Star Power multiplier to boost up to six times instead of just double, while another earns the player a star for maintaining a scoring multiplier above a certain target for a length of time. When these powers are active, the players can earn well beyond five stars on a score either due to higher scoring opportunities or stars rewarded by the power, with a maximum of 40 stars available for each song.
Game modes As with previous iterations of Guitar Hero, Warriors of Rock provides a career mode called "Quest Mode" that progresses through each of the on-disc songs. Quest Mode is centered on a story-telling element narrated by Gene Simmons, where the player must help save the Demigod of Rock from a mechanized creature called the Beast. To do this, the player must recruit eight characters for the battle against the Beast, each of whom have a unique power that affects gameplay. To recruit a character, the player must perform a number of songs that represent that character's musical genre within a stylistic venue; for example, the first character, the mohawk-wearing Johnny Napalm, has a number of punk songs available, and uses the now-defunct CBGB Club in New York City as his venue. After the player earns a minimum number of stars for that character, that character is transformed into a "warrior", boosting their unique power, and is recruited into the player's band.
Midway through the Quest, the players will encounter the legendary ax-guitar that belongs to the Demigod; this section is highlighted by playing through the full seven-part "2112" by Rush. Rush's members, Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson, narrate this section based on the story outlined in the liner notes of the 2112 album. The "2112" section also takes place in special venues inspired by the "2112" song, including the cave where the ax-guitar is found, and one highlighting the iconic Starman image. After recruiting all eight characters, the player must divide the characters into two bands to "fight" against the Beast as to earn a maximum number of stars from each band's combined powers in order to power the ax-guitar and allow the Demigod to finish the Beast himself. This last battle is set to a new song, "Sudden Death" by Megadeth (which would later appear in their album Thirteen, released the following year) and written by their front-man Dave Mustaine specifically for the conclusion of the game, and contains portions that he believed were "the most difficult parts" he has written in his life. When the player has completed the battle with the Beast, they have the opportunity to return to the previous venues, now with all eight powers active simultaneously, and attempt to achieve 40-star performances for each song in the game, as well as a comparatively difficult set of songs with the Demigod himself.
Video game journalists have noted thematic similarities between the story details of Warriors of Rock and Brütal Legend, an action video game with a world based on heavy metal, developed by Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions which Activision, at one point, would have published but later dropped the rights. Project lead Brian Bright commented that their inspiration for the game's story was the covers of metal albums, the same material that led to the world of Brütal Legend.
In the game's Quickplay+ mode, players can play any song on-disc or from their downloadable content library. Each song has 13 different achievements to be completed. Twelve are similar to the Challenges introduced in Guitar Hero 5, such as getting a high score, maintain a long note streak, or accumulating an amount of Star Power, and each has 3 levels (gold, platinum, and diamond) that translate to 1 to 3 additional stars once reached. If the player has unlocked the Warrior character powers in the Quest mode, they can enable these powers to try to get up to a maximum of 20 stars (21 for successfully completing the song without missing a note or hitting notes that aren't there) on each song for the thirteenth challenge. As the player earns stars in this mode, they will advance in rank and gain additional unlockable features such as alternate outfits or guitars and additional venue selections. Party mode introduced in Guitar Hero 5 is also available, where the game will automatically play songs like a jukebox, and allow for players to drop-in or drop-out at any time. The competitive modes introduced in Guitar Hero 5 are also carried over into Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and are expanded to include band-vs-band variants.