Stage Tour Brings RedOctane Back to Plastic-Guitar Rock With a Strong Setlist

RedOctane, the Embracer-owned studio that built the original Guitar Hero, is back with a new rhythm game called Stage Tour. At Gamescom this summer, the team confirmed a December 10 release date and said the finished game will feature more than 90 songs. So far, 61 of them have been revealed, and the list is already doing a lot of the selling.

The early lineup leans into hard rock and metal, but it doesn't stop there. Metallica's "Lux Æterna," Megadeth's "Tornado of Souls," and Slipknot's "Psychosocial" sit alongside Radiohead's "Just," The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," and Blur's "Parklife." Pop and alt-rock fans get Olivia Rodrigo, Avril Lavigne, and Fall Out Boy, while Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California," Weezer's "Island in the Sun," and Smash Mouth's "All Star" cover the crowd-pleasers. Dream Theater and Sabaton add technical prog and power metal for players who want harder charts. The spread across decades and genres makes the list feel curated rather than assembled from a licensing checklist.

Like its predecessors, Stage Tour supports solo sessions or group play across guitar, drums, keyboard, and vocals. Hardware is part of the pitch too. Players can buy a guitar controller made in partnership with Kramer, along with a modulator guitar kit. The in-game instruments come from Gibson, Epiphone, and Kramer, including the Gibson SG.

The next wave of songs is scheduled for reveal on October 21, so the full tracklist is still incomplete. Based on what's public now, though, Stage Tour is aiming squarely at players who grew up with plastic guitars and never stopped wanting to jam along.