GUITAR HERO Spiritual Successor STAGE TOUR Lands METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLIPKNOT And More For 90-Song Soundtrack

Summary

• Stage Tour launches December 10 with more than 90 licensed songs and full instrument support.
• The soundtrack includes Metallica, Megadeth, Slipknot, Ghost, Olivia Rodrigo and Ed Sheeran.
• The Guitar Hero-style revival adds Tour Mode, online multiplayer, new guitar controllers and dedicated drums.

Plastic guitars are crawling out of the closet again.

Stage Tour, the new rhythm game from RedOctane Games, has locked in a December 10, 2026 release date and revealed a substantial portion of its launch soundtrack. Metallica, Megadeth, Slipknot, Mastodon and Ghost sit alongside Olivia Rodrigo, Ed Sheeran, Paramore, The Rolling Stones, Muse and plenty of less obvious selections.

The comparison to Guitar Hero is hardly subtle. RedOctane Games includes developers and creators with direct links to the original Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Neversoft and Harmonix era, while Stage Tour brings back the five-fret note highway, dedicated guitar controllers, drums, microphones and local multiplayer. Calling it a spiritual successor requires very little spiritual interpretation.

RedOctane confirmed during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 that Stage Tour will arrive on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 on December 10. More than 90 officially licensed songs will ship with the game, spanning roughly six decades of music.

Only 45 have been publicly identified at this stage, and the heavy end of that list is considerably more interesting than another obligatory trip through the same handful of classic-rock radio staples.

Metallica, Megadeth and Slipknot lead the heavier side of Stage Tour

Metallica will contribute “Lux Æterna,” taken from the band’s 2023 album 72 Seasons. Megadeth gets arguably the more entertaining rhythm-game choice with “Tornado of Souls,” complete with the Marty Friedman solo that will presumably separate Expert players from people who suddenly discover they have somewhere else to be.

Slipknot’s “Psychosocial” is also confirmed, following its earlier reveal in July.

The metal selection goes considerably deeper. The currently announced soundtrack also contains Mastodon’s “The Motherload,” Ghost’s “Square Hammer,” Static-X’s “Terminator Oscillator,” Bad Omens’ “Just Pretend,” Beast in Black’s “Blind and Frozen,” and BABYMETAL and Electric Callboy’s “RATATATA.”

Mötley Crüe supplies “Kickstart My Heart,” while Extreme contributes “Get the Funk Out.” Def Leppard’s “Photograph” and ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” cover another corner of the guitar-rock spectrum.

That range matters. A rhythm game containing 90 songs becomes tedious fairly quickly if every chart feels like it was assembled by somebody trapped inside a 2007 classic-rock compilation CD.

Ed Sheeran and Olivia Rodrigo are also picking up the plastic guitar

Stage Tour isn’t pretending rock music stopped evolving once distortion pedals were invented.

Olivia Rodrigo’s “ballad of a homeschooled girl” is included, and Ed Sheeran appears through “Bad Habits,” featuring Bring Me the Horizon. The latter is particularly sensible for a game trying to place modern pop next to heavier material without producing musical whiplash severe enough to require medical attention.

Other announced tracks include Paramore’s “For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic,” Radiohead’s “Just,” The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” Muse’s “Starlight,” Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California,” The Rolling Stones’ “In the Stars” and Avril Lavigne’s “Bite Me.”

The soundtrack also ventures completely outside heavy music with the Black Eyed Peas, Duran Duran, Smash Mouth, Walk the Moon and Wheatus.

Purists may roll their eyes at that mix, although Guitar Hero and Rock Band were never strictly metal simulators in the first place. Their best setlists worked partly because one minute you were mangling a difficult guitar solo and the next somebody at the party was screaming into a microphone.

Stage Tour is bringing actual plastic instruments back

The bigger gamble involves hardware.

Stage Tour supports Lead Guitar, Groove Guitar/Bass, Drums and Vocals, alongside keyboard and ordinary gamepad controls. Players can use four-lane or five-lane Arcade configurations, with difficulty settings running from Easy through Expert and an Expert Plus option for drums.

RedOctane has partnered with Gibson, bringing Gibson, Epiphone and Kramer instruments into the game. Players will be able to collect more than 180 licensed virtual guitars, while the character system contains more than 50 bandmates.

Physical hardware is returning too.

The official Kramer Wireless Guitar Controller costs $109.99, while the game-and-guitar package is currently listed at $129.99. A dedicated Stage Tour drum kit costs $199.99, and complete band bundles combining the game, guitar, drums and microphone begin at $299.99.

That pricing illustrates the awkward question hanging over the whole revival. People remember plastic-instrument rhythm games fondly. Convincing them to spend several hundred dollars rebuilding a fake band in the living room is another matter entirely.

At least RedOctane isn’t locking the game behind specialist peripherals. Standard controllers and keyboards are supported, and PC will offer the widest native support for older instruments, which should be welcome news to anyone whose ancient guitar controller has somehow survived multiple console generations and three house moves.

Tour Mode gives the old formula a roguelite twist

Stage Tour isn’t simply rebuilding Guitar Hero III with prettier lighting.

Its headline addition is Tour Mode, a single-player campaign using roguelite mechanics. Players move from smaller venues toward larger stages while selecting routes, earning stars, buying effects pedals and choosing upgrades that alter each run.

More familiar options include Quickplay, Practice and Judgements, while Karaoke removes the original vocal track and lets players sing without worrying about pitch scoring. Local and online multiplayer are supported for groups of up to four, including cross-platform play.

The studio also says additional songs will arrive through post-launch DLC, meaning the announced 90-plus launch library is intended as a starting point rather than the final catalog.

One detail deserves clearing up because some early reporting has muddied it: the 90-plus-song figure is official, not merely rumored. RedOctane’s own website and current Steam listing explicitly state that Stage Tour will launch with more than 90 licensed tracks.

Forty-five have been named publicly so far.

With Metallica, Megadeth, Slipknot, Mastodon, Ghost, Mötley Crüe, Olivia Rodrigo, Ed Sheeran, The Rolling Stones and dozens more already accounted for, RedOctane has at least avoided one obvious mistake: building a rhythm-game comeback around a microscopic soundtrack.

The tougher test arrives December 10, 2026. Nostalgia can get an old plastic guitar out of the garage. Stage Tour still has to give people a reason to keep it beside the television.

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