Guitar Hero Live is a 2015 rhythm game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the seventh main instalment, the twelfth overall instalment in the Guitar Hero series, and serves as a reboot of the Guitar Hero franchise, being the first new entry in the series since Warriors of Rock in 2010. The game was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One in October 2015. As with previous games in the series, the goal is to use a special guitar controller to match fret patterns displayed on a scrolling note pattern on screen in time with the music.
Activision wanted to bring back Guitar Hero for the next generation of video game consoles but wanted the new game to be innovative. These innovations included a new guitar controller featuring a six button, three-fret layout in contrast to the 5 button controller of previous games. The game featured two main modes; GH Live, the games career mode, featured the note pattern displayed atop full motion video taken from the perspective of a lead guitarist during a concert, with the crowd and other band members dynamically reacting to the player's performance. In the other main mode, GHTV, songs are presented with the note track overlaid atop their music video or from live concert footage. The mode also allows players to pick up and play currently-streamed songs at any time or use money and in-game credits to play any song within the library, forgoing traditional downloadable content. The game was shipped with forty-two songs on disc and 200 songs within the GHTV library; new content has been added to GHTV on a weekly basis, provided through premium shows that earn players unique rewards.
Guitar Hero Live was released to mostly positive reception, with critics praising the new controller design for providing trickier and more realistic gameplay in comparison to previous Guitar Hero games, as well as the wider variety of content available via the GHTV mode. The main Live portion of the game received mixed reviews, with criticism towards its weak soundtrack, lack of multiplayer and the live action videos. The GHTV mode also received mixed reception for its reliance on microtransactions, and the inability to permanently purchase songs to own.
Due to the game's underwhelming sales and reception, Activision laid off many employees of FreeStyleGames and sold the company to Ubisoft in 2017, where it continued. The GHTV mode was shut down on 1 December 2018, reducing the available Guitar Hero songs from 484 to the 42 present on-disc.
Gameplay
Guitar Hero Live follows similar gameplay to previous installments in the series, requiring players to use a guitar-shaped controller with buttons and a strum bar to match notes on a scrolling "highway" corresponding to notes played in a song. In contrast to the previous five-button design, the Guitar Hero Live controller features six buttons arranged into two rows of three. The frets are represented by a "note highway", three scrolling lanes on-screen, containing either black or white notes representing the two rows. Lower difficulty levels use one row of buttons, while higher difficulties may include "chords" that use a combination of buttons from both rows. The game typically maps out power chords to use the top row of buttons, while modifications of those chords include others from the bottom row. Notes may be held and sustained, indicated by trailing lines after the note markers, during which the player can use the guitar's whammy bar to alter the held note's pitch for effect. Fast-moving sections of songs may employ the use of hammer-on and pull-off notes, marked with a special outline, which can be played without using the strum bar. The game also retains the concept of open strumming introduced in previous Guitar Hero titles, represented as a horizontal bar across the lanes and requiring the player to hit the strum bar without pressing any fret keys. The player is able to select one of four difficulty levels which affect the number and complexity of the note patterns they have to hit, and the speed at which the on-screen display scrolls. Guitar Hero Live can also be played by two players, both playing on separate guitar controllers with split-screen separate note highways, competing for the better score. Songs in GH Live mode (below) also includes vocals, allowing players to sing along in tone with the song's lyrics using a connected microphone.
The game is playable via an app on iOS mobile devices, including the fourth-generation Apple TV. This version supports both "touch" mode and support for an optional Bluetooth-enabled guitar controller that provides "[the] full game in an uncompromised way" according to Activision. When in touch mode, the note display geared towards the 6-button controller is replaced with four touch-screen buttons but otherwise retains the same gameplay; with the controller, the game otherwise plays the same. Due to the size of the game relative to storage space on most mobile devices, Guitar Hero Live on iOS units requires a persistent Internet connection as all songs, including those that are normally part of the console on-disc soundtrack, are streamed from Activision's servers when played.
The guitar connects to the console via a supplied USB dongle. The USB dongle needs to match the game version, the PlayStation 3 dongle won't work on PlayStation 4 console and vice versa. The same guitar is compatible with both platforms, as well as Xbox, but not the iOS version.
GH Live
In the game's primary single-player mode, titled GH Live within the game, the player completes songs while experiencing full-motion video taken from the first-person perspective of a band's lead guitarist. The video includes shots of the audience and the band members. As the player performs the songs, the audience responds positively to good performances when few mistakes are made. If the player makes several mistakes in a row, the audience will become critical and start to jeer at the performer. To win back the crowd, the player can either match more notes correctly, or can use collected Hero Power to rapidly regain their interest. Hero Power, replacing Star Power from previous Guitar Hero games, is collected by correctly playing marked series of notes on the track; Hero Power can be accumulated, marked as on-screen guitar picks next to the track, to be used at later times. The player can release Hero Power for a limited time by either tilting the guitar controller upward or hitting a special button on the controller.
The career mode is broken up into a dozen-some show sets, each set consisting of about 3–5 songs. The video for each set includes the band's introduction, banter between the band and crowd between songs, and final ovations on conclusion of the show. The player must unlock each set in order as to move forward. Once a set is complete, the player is shown the game's ranking of their performance and for each song, based on factors such as percentage of notes hit correctly, the longest streak of properly played consecutive notes, and how long they kept the virtual crowd excited about their performance. The player then unlocks the ability to play the individual songs outside of sets.
GHTV
In addition to songs that were shipped on disc, additional songs were introduced to the game through Guitar Hero TV (GHTV). On starting GHTV mode, the player was given a choice of a number of themed channels, which broadcast playable songs curated programs on a rotating schedule similar to a radio broadcast. One such channel always presented new songs that had been added to GHTV. Songs in GHTV were played over the music video for the song or live concert footage of the band playing the song, instead of the custom visuals for the main single player game. The player could pick up and play on any song that was shown, but was also able to use earned Plays to replay a specific song outside of the channel's rotation.
While playing in GHTV, the player was scored to track their performance, and their scores were compared to other players - both those playing at the same time as well as asynchronous scores from other players. To help boost their score, players could accumulate Hero Power in the same fashion as in the GH Live mode. Prior to a song, the player could choose to use Coins, the in-game currency, to purchase one of several Hero Powers which they could deploy during the song, improving their score and performance. Hero Powers included temporary boosts in scoring multipliers, ability to clear all notes for a short distance on the track, or to increase or decrease the density of notes. When a song was complete, the player was ranked based on their performance with the other tracked players, and awarded experience points, Coins, and other bonuses. Experience points are used to raise the player's rank in the GHTV metagame, allowing them to unlock player card skins and other features of GHTV, including Play tokens. Alternatively, players can use the paid, microtransaction currency Hero Cash to purchase access to content. In an update in December 2015, players on GHTV had an opportunity to be randomly pitted in a head-to-head challenge against another player of similar skill level, about twice every half-hour. Winning this head-to-head challenge could give the player an experience point boost.
New songs to GHTV were typically introduced via limited-time "Premium Shows", which ran for a week or more; these songs were then moved into the on-demand catalog and later into the normal GHTV rotation. Access to Premium Shows could be purchased with Hero Cash, or by completing several specific songs in either on-demand or on rotation play. Within the Premium Shows, players competed in the same manner as with normal GHTV songs and could earn unique in-game rewards, such as coins or alternate skins for the on-screen note "highway".
Players could purchase a "Party Pass" that allowed full access to all of GHTVs on-demand songs and paid features for 24 hours, a mode that FreeStyleGames envisioned to be used when players are hosting large parties or similar events. As first held on the weekend of 6 November 2015, Activision could offer promotional periods that similarly offer full access.
In addition to regular content, GHTV was used to provide specialty programming. GHTV offered curated music video shows with host segments wrapped around playable songs; the first such show features songs selected by the band Avenged Sevenfold and included commentary by the band on these selections. Def Leppard used GHTV to premiere their new music video for their single "Dangerous" in January 2016. Activision offered a contest for players to win prizes by participating in a special "Shred-a-Thon" premium show, highlighting the addition of DragonForce's "Through the Fire and Flames"—one of the most notoriously difficult songs that has appeared in other Guitar Hero titles—to the GHTV setlist.
Activision announced in June 2018 that the GHTV servers will be shut down on 1 December 2018, rendering this functionality unusable. Players will still be able to play songs on disc. The iOS app was also delisted as its functionality would also cease with the shut down of the GHTV servers.
Soundtrack
The on-disc soundtrack of Guitar Hero Live includes 42 songs and spans across a diverse selection of genres, the developers recognizing that challenging guitar tracks are not strictly limited to rock music. The game's soundtrack include songs by The Black Keys, Blitz Kids, Ed Sheeran, Fall Out Boy, Gary Clark Jr., Green Day, The Killers, The Lumineers, My Chemical Romance, Pierce the Veil, The Rolling Stones, Skrillex, and The War on Drugs.