Unleash Your Inner Guitar Hero on PS5: Is the Legend Back?

For many gamers, the mere mention of Guitar Hero evokes a powerful sense of nostalgia. Rewind to the mid-2000s, and you’d find living rooms across the globe transformed into rock arenas, with plastic guitars slung low and fingers flying across colored buttons. If you’re like me, you probably spent countless hours mastering solos and battling friends for rock supremacy. But fast forward to today, and the question on every PS5 owner’s mind is: can we relive those glory days? Is there a Guitar Hero experience on PlayStation 5?

My own journey with Guitar Hero began with Guitar Hero 2 back in 2006. Like many, I started tentatively on medium difficulty, slowly building my skills until I was shredding on expert. The thrill of nailing a complex solo and the bragging rights amongst friends were intoxicating. As the franchise grew, I eagerly devoured each new release, and even embraced the rival Rock Band series, racking up thousands of hours across both.

Then came 2015 and Guitar Hero Live. While innovation is usually welcome, this iteration felt like a misstep. The drastic change in button layout, aiming for a more “realistic” guitar experience, alienated long-time fans like myself. Years of muscle memory were rendered useless. Frustration replaced fun, and like many, I hung up my plastic axe, disappointed. The silence was deafening; besides Rock Band 4, the PS4/Xbox One generation was strangely devoid of new guitar rhythm games. This meant upgrading to PS4/PS5 left a guitar-shaped hole in my gaming setup.

Finding compatible guitars now presents a new challenge. Older Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers are becoming scarce, often plagued by wear and tear, missing wireless dongles, or inflated prices driven by collector demand. The landscape seemed barren until the recent arrival of the PDP Riffmaster Wireless Guitar Controller. Securing one, however, proved to be another hurdle. Scalpers quickly snatched up initial stock, driving prices sky-high. Fortunately, I managed to snag one at its retail price of $130 (around $140 after tax), pairing it with a budget-friendly copy of Rock Band 4 for $10. And then, there’s the completely free revelation: Clone Hero.

PDP Riffmaster: https://pdp.com/collections/riffmaster-wireless-guitar-controller

Clone Hero Download: https://clonehero.net/

The PDP Riffmaster itself is a fantastic piece of hardware. Build quality is excellent, and crucially, it’s officially licensed for PS5, ensuring seamless compatibility. For PlayStation users like myself, this is a major win. While an Xbox version exists, PlayStation gamers get the added bonus of Mac compatibility, a feature missing from the Xbox variant which is limited to PC. This PlayStation focus made the Riffmaster the obvious choice for my setup.

Currently, Rock Band 4 stands as the primary, and almost solitary, rhythm game option on PS5 that fully supports the PDP Riffmaster. While Fortnite Festival also offers guitar gameplay, it lacks the depth and dedicated guitar-centric experience that Guitar Hero and Rock Band veterans crave. Disappointingly, there’s no official Guitar Hero title on PS4 or PS5 compatible with modern controllers like the Riffmaster.

Initially resigned to a Rock Band-centric future, my search for a true Guitar Hero fix led me to the incredible discovery of Clone Hero. This community-driven, free game is a revelation. Imagine a platform that flawlessly emulates the entire Guitar Hero catalog, and then expands it infinitely with a massive library of custom songs created by a passionate community. It’s a dream come true, especially given the zero-dollar price tag. How Clone Hero escaped my radar for so long is a mystery, but it’s now an essential part of my gaming setup. The best part? It boasts compatibility with most older Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitars, making it accessible to almost anyone with legacy hardware.

My Clone Hero library quickly swelled to over 1,000 songs, encompassing every official Guitar Hero setlist, DLC tracks, and a vast selection of custom songs, including many from my headbanging metal days.

Between Rock Band 4 and Clone Hero, my PS5 has become a rhythm game paradise once again. While my fingers and forearms are still re-adjusting to the demands of expert difficulty, my old skills are rapidly returning. Some expert-level tracks remain a challenge, but I can confidently conquer anything on hard, improving with each session. I’d forgotten just how much of a workout these games provide! Rockstar fitness is on the horizon.

My only minor gripe with the PDP Riffmaster is a currently non-functional tilt sensor for Star Power activation in Clone Hero. It works perfectly in Rock Band 4, suggesting a future Clone Hero update might resolve this. Otherwise, compatibility is flawless.

The Riffmaster comes highly recommended. If the price is a barrier, exploring used Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitars is a viable alternative, especially for diving into the world of Clone Hero. With offline co-op and even online play in Clone Hero, there’s a wealth of rocking fun to be had.

Let me leave you with a few more shots of the PDP Riffmaster in action. Yes, it’s a fingerprint magnet, but just look at how sleek it is. The guitar, I mean.