A team of veteran game developers, who have previously worked on the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero series, have established a new studio. That studio, which falls under the Embracer Freemode umbrella, will revive the RedOctane name long after the Activision subsidiary was shuttered in 2010.
Unsurprisingly, the focus of this newly (re)formed studio is “advancing the rhythm game genre, combining the past with the future” with RedOctane expected to announce its first game later this year – at Gamescom perhaps?
2023’s Fortnite Festival – developed by Harmonix – is the spiritual successor to Rock Band.
At its helm is Simon Ebejer, who worked as production director across numerous Guitar Hero games at Neversoft before becoming the studio head at Vicarious Visions, going on to hold the title of vice president of operations at Blizzard.
Ebejer will be flanked by fellow creators “who helped create and scale Guitar Hero and DJ Hero nearly two decades ago, as well as proven emerging development talent and community leaders from across today’s rhythm gaming space.” That talent includes the original founders of RedOctane, Charles and Kai Huang, who will join the revived studio in an advisory capacity.
Exactly what RedOctane is working on remains a mystery for now though hopefully an announcement is just around the corner. For a long time now, fans of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been pining for a comeback, ready to trawl lofts and garages to retrieve their long-abandoned plastic instruments.
A straight-up successor to these genre-defining rhythm games seems like a no-brainer, but it’s far from being an open goal. Since 2023, rival developer Harmonix has been honing its Rock Band-like Fortnite Festival mode, plugging into the mass popularity of Epic’s battle royale shooter and its A-list celebrity crossovers.
That’s not to say there isn’t room for competition – a Guitar Hero game that weaves in elements from other genres, maybe? To truly evolve the concept, RedOctane will need to do more than simply dress up the old formula with modern graphics and a modern playlist of songs.
One thing we’re particularly keen to know more about is the potential for a new guitar controller. Guitar Hero Live was unfairly viewed as the final nail in the coffin for Activision’s series though it introduced some bold changes, namely the advanced six-button controller design we still swear by today.
Whatever RedOctane is working on, we can’t wait for this new phase of rhythm games.
Source: Press Release
