Is hard to believe that its been a decade since Guitar Hero Live was released during the PS4/Xbox One generation. Guitar Hero Live was significant entry within its own series mainly because it may have been the final game with franchise. Guitar Hero Live was a game that a handful of people enjoyed but it was also one most longtime fans of the series disliked. Guitar Hero Live was a game that was criticized for its button system since it was different from its predecessors. Also, the difficulty gap in between difficulties such as Hard and Expert made Guitar Hero Live damn near unplayable for many people especially casuals. The quality of music in Guitar Hero Live also took a turn for the worst because it featured mainly Hot Topic Metal music opposed to having various legendary Rock songs from 80’s, 90’s or the 2000’s decade. Activision went from having bands like Nirvana, Coldplay, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins and famous names like Bon Jovi, Johnny Cash to having names like Skrillex, Imagine Dragons, One Republic along with a handful of other pop artists.

It should also be noted that Guitar Hero Live had less base songs than some of its predecessors. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock from ’07 was arguably the best in entry in the series had more than 70 base songs while Guitar Hero Live only had around 40 on its disc. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock also went on to sell at least 8 million copies worldwide during the PS3/Xbox 360 era. Guitar Hero Live may not have had the best track listing but it featured songs from famous bands like Blink-182, Linkin Park and Pearl Jam which was cool. Some of the pop songs featured in Guitar Hero Live had no metal which was one of the major things people did not like about it. Also, indie rock was something that most people did not care about because it lacked mainstream appeal. The GHTV feature was something else that hurt the overall quality of the game because of its poor execution. GHTV was something that players were expected to pay for on a monthly basis using in-game currency. While purchasing a “Party Pass” was another way to gain access to songs that were constantly updated on GHTV none of the songs from that mode were available for offline gameplay. In fact, GHTV had around 200 songs during its launched which was more than twice the music that was featured on the actual disk. The GHTV feature was contributed to Guitar Hero Live being a massive failure because it relied on micro-transactions which critics believe was done because of corporate greed.

GHTV online servers ended up being shut down by 2018 and the sales figures for Guitar Hero Live was very poor which reflected the reception of the game itself. Guitar Hero Live is a game that could have been somewhat salvageable if Activision had included a robust local multiplayer game mode. Also, the story mode in Guitar Hero Live was not nearly as compelling as some of the earlier entries that we got in the series during the 2000’s. By the mid 2010’s the rhythm genre of gaming had decline significantly compared to where it was during the mid 00’s-early 10’s and in some ways Guitar Hero Live was reflection as to why that was the case. While oversaturation played role in causals losing interest in the Guitar Hero series overtime and it had become clear that franchise had peaked years before 2015. While a new Guitar Hero game is possible in the future its not something at the top of Activision’s priority list at the moment.