Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is the upcoming installment in Activision’s popular rhythm franchise. What started out as a guitar experience slowly expanded to draw more friends into the mix, first with vocals and finally with drums. Before long it had the whole group jamming, and since then the band has kept on jamming with new installments being released every so often.

Earlier today El33tonline got a behind-the-scenes look at Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, a journey through the game’s new Quest mode and some insight into the minds behind the game.

Rock on!

We met up with Brian Marvin, a developer from Neversoft Entertainment who also worked on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Apart from looking the part of a cool rock star-like guitar player (and shredding the notes like one too!), Marvin is obviously passionate about the product.

Marvin described how the development team wanted to “bring rock back to the game” and so compiled a list of over 90 songs from the rock and metal genres. He then went on to explain a little bit about the new Quest mode from the game. You can look forward to an enjoyable opening cutscene for the mode, voiced by none other than Gene Simmons from the band KISS.

In this new mode the story comes to the fore, telling the tale of a mechanical beast battling the demi-god of rock. The demo-god loses and his guitar is banished to the depths of a cave. It’s now up to the player to find the ancient guitar weapon and release the hero…to become the warrior of rock!

In Quest mode you’ll play through eight different venues, but it’s not linear so you can complete them however you wish to, unlocking more as you progress. There will also be special venues for the band RUSH inspired by their album 2112.

School of Rock

Another thing separating this title from the previous installments in the series is that each of eight select characters will have unique powers. For example, Johnny Napalm is a Speed Freak that boasts a 2x minimum multiplayer. Of course we can look forward to some old favourites too, like Johnny, Lars Umlaat and Judy Nails, but the game will also include new characters like the very coolly named Echo Tesla.

As you progress in Quest mode you’ll upgrade your character’s powers. We got a brief glimpse of Tesla beginning her transformation into more of a warrior, even her band’s appearance changed to mirror her new look. Tesla’s special ability is that she earns 5% star points for every 10 note streak. Obviously as her powers are upgraded this percentage will increase and so she will become increasingly powerful.

Each time Tesla upgrades a short B-grade movie clip plays, telling a small snippet of the history of the character. This reminds one of the short story progressions told in between battles in many popular fighting franchises like Tekken and Mortal Kombat. Often they don’t make much sense at all, and it’s often difficult to follow the story progression, but they’re enjoyable nonetheless and go a long way to adding a little something extra to the title.

Musical takedown

Quest mode will culminate in players battling the beast – to win you’re going to have to play three different Megadeath songs, the last one which is custom made for the game and Marvin promises will “blister your fingers.” You’ll have to make use of the eight different types of powers to conquer it, but it will be worth it (despite the blistered fingers) because you’ll unlock Demi-god mode where you can play the songs on a much harder difficulty level and “dominate” the chapters making use of all eight powers now.

The game will also feature the Quickplay Plus mode where players will be able to jump in and get scores. This mode includes 30 different kinds of challenges, 13 different ones per song. The challenges run in the background so you can unlock them without even working towards that goal. Players can only earn stars in each song (30 per song), there are no scores in the game. You’ll be able to earn Gold, Platinum and Diamond awards, earning extra stars if you complete them all. You’ll also be able to unlock clothing and assets, such as pictures and album art dating back to Guitar Hero 3. As you earn stars you’ll rank up, introducing a kind of RPG-like quality to the game.

Even more interesting is that you’ll be able to participate in power challenges where you’ll choose any two powers and earn scores accordingly. Never fear though because this will feature different leaderboards.

On another note…

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock will feature a new progress meter so that you can keep track of how far you are into the song. Handy if you’re wanting to treasure that last moment of fame, or to see how much longer you have to hold out for if you’re not fairing too well.

There’s also a whole bunch of new sort options. You’ll be able to sort the songs by title, artist, year and genre to name a few. You will of course be able to import your songs from Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero. Downloadable content for the game will feature challenges too, which you can complete for extra stars. The store will also now start recommending songs for you depending on your previous downloads. Sweet.

Fans of the series will be happy to know that all their favourite modes will be included in the game, such as the jump in Party Play mode, Guitar Hero Studio plus competitive modes. There will also be a Momentum Plus mode where you’ll be able to knock a person doing the best performance back to the beginning. However, watch out because they will be able to attack and defend, perhaps sending you back!

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock will be available for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii this September, on the 28th across the US and on the 24th across Europe and the UK. The game will be backwards compatible with all the previous Guitar Hero guitars, but you can also choose to invest in a new guitar, this time with detachable wings but minus the slider bar, should you wish to.

Browse through El33tonline’s previous coverage of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock to check out a bunch of videos and the game’s announced tracklist.