Is Guitar Hero on the cusp of making its long-awaited return?

Guitar Hero used to be a video game that brought concerts into your own living room. It was an opportunity for gamers to turn themselves into real life rock stars.

The music that was featured on each of these individual Guitar Hero games were nothing short of great. They were great games when you were looking for something to do when your friends came over. You became the concert and you catered to every one of your virtual fans.

It was a very unique concept for a video game that first came out in the early 2000s. It was one of those video games where instead of picking up a controller and playing, you picked up a guitar and that acted as your controller.

Some of the biggest video game talks in the gaming community right now is still buzzing about Microsoft’s plan to purchase Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Ever since that news was announced, rumors, speculation, and more gaming news about what the purchase means for the future of Xbox and Activision have been circulating all over the internet. However, Phil Spencer has been very active in the gaming news which has helped clear up a lot and also has gotten gamers excited about what’s to come in the future.

Phil Spencer recently spoke shortly with The Washington Post about Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard. While speaking to The Washington Post, Phil Spencer made some interesting comments about franchises that have been deserted by Activision Blizzard.

"I was looking at the IP list, I mean, let’s go! ‘King’s Quest,’ ‘Guitar Hero,’ … I should know this, but I think they got ‘HeXen.’"

Phil Spencer also has said before that as soon as the deal becomes official and finalized, Xbox and their team will speak to their many developers and discuss potential franchises from Activision Blizzard they would like to work on. Guitar Hero can very well be one of these franchises. Since Activision Blizzard will be working under the Xbox roof, it may allow for much more freedom. This wouldn’t put as much pressure on them to strictly focus on bigger franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, or even Diablo.

The first time that Guitar Hero was released was 17 years ago back in 2005. When IGN reviewed the game, it got an outstanding 9.2/10. As you may know IGN isn’t always generous with their reviews so giving it a 9.2 is definitely something that should be taken note of. This was a game that took the gaming community by storm. Since Guitar Hero got so much positive feedback from a majority of reviewers and from the community itself, it allowed there to be 7 total main games, 3 band-centric games, 3 expansion games, and a variety of other Guitar Hero video games in the franchise. Needless to say, Guitar Hero was a very successful franchise.

Guitar Hero Live is the most recent installment in the series and that was released back in 2015. At this point in the series lifespan, it appeared that something wasn’t clicking as it was with the previous versions. IGN ended up giving Guitar Hero Live a 7.9/10. This was a drastic decrease in a rating, and it appeared like the video game and franchise could have been taken care of a little better.

Since it has been seven years since the last game in the series has been released, is it finally time for Guitar Hero to make its long-awaited return? With how technology has increased over the last decade, I can imagine that a new Guitar Hero installment would not only be visually appealing for our eyes and sweet sounding for our ears, but it would also sell tons of copies. When successful franchises have gone on a hiatus for a while in the past and make a grand return, its usually a good selling point because everyone wants to see how the franchised has evolved.

From what we have heard Phil Spencer talk about in the news lately, it appears that Guitar Hero is likely something to be revived down the line, but nothing will be made official until this mega deal with Activision Blizzard is finalized. The deal is expected to officially close by Summer 2023. With that being said, don’t be surprised if Activision and Xbox have a surprise for their fans in the form of a newly rejuvenated Guitar Hero game sometime down the line.