Somewhere in a garage there is a plastic guitar that has been waiting fifteen years for this. Stage Tour, a new rhythm game from RedOctane Games, the reformed studio behind the original Guitar Hero, is bringing instrument controllers back to lounge rooms in late 2026 on Switch 2, PS5 and PC.
The Band Is Back Together
The original RedOctane built the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises before Activision shut the studio down in 2010. In August 2025 the name came back: veterans of the original team reformed under Embracer's Freemode label specifically to build a new music game franchise, as Engadget reported at the reveal. Stage Tour is the result: build a band across Lead, Groove, Drums and Vocals roles, play with up to four people in local or online co-op, and take each other on in PvP.
Plastic Guitars, Real Gibsons
The hardware story is the confident part. RedOctane signed a multi-year partnership with Gibson that puts the Gibson, Epiphone and Kramer brands in the game, with official Kramer guitar controllers on the way. Crucially, per Nintendo Life's coverage, third-party instruments like CRKD's guitar range will work too, alongside microphone and drum support. Nobody is being forced to re-buy their loungeroom orchestra from one vendor, which is a lesson the genre learned the hard way.
The Setlist So Far
Sixteen tracks are confirmed to start, and the spread is genuinely fun: Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California", Ghost's "Square Hammer", Weezer's "Island in the Sun", Extreme's "Get the Funk Out", plus Paramore, Slipknot, Avril Lavigne, Rise Against, Static-X, and the BABYMETAL x Electric Callboy collaboration "RATATATA". A closed alpha ran over the northern summer, with the full release slated for the fourth quarter of 2026.
Our Take
Full disclosure: this writer's formative years involved a Kramer-shaped piece of plastic and a lot of Through the Fire and Flames failure, so Stage Tour had me at the logo. The pedigree is real and the Gibson deal signals seriousness. The open question is price and shelf space: instrument bundles are expensive to make and ship in 2026, and Fortnite Festival gives away a rhythm game with real licensed hits for free. Stage Tour's bet is that holding a guitar beats holding a controller. It was right in 2005. We will find out this Christmas if it still is.
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