Ever since Fortnite Festival was created, I have been yearning for more experiences to recapture the magic of classic Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Needless to say, then, I was very excited when I first heard about Stage Tour. A game made not just by former developers from Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but by key members of the communities that have kept these franchises alive, sounded like a dream come true. I was able to play a little bit during Gamescom 2026, and it has made me more excited than ever for the full game.
If you have played either Guitar Hero or Rock Band, or the many games that it inspired, then the set-up of Stage Tour will be all too familiar for you. All you need to do is pick a song, a difficulty level, and what instrument you want to play. Then, the track starts, and you have to hit the notes on-screen with the right timing. It is a familiar set-up, made even more recognizable by the fact that the booth I played it at had a Gibson guitar as the main controller. However, in my opinion, this is not a game that necessarily needs to innovate on the formula of the games that preceded it. Instead, all it needs to do is recapture the magic of those titles. So far, I believe that it does that extremely well.
The mechanics of Stage Tour are exactly like its contemporaries: five buttons that correspond to specific lanes; hitting notes on those lanes gets you more points, which can be doubled with a multiplier that you accumulate over time. It took me a while to get back into the controls, as you have to hit the paddle on the guitar in order to make the notes register, but it was easy to understand once I got the hang of things. The developers told me that the full game will not only support regular controller play, but also four lanes instead of five lanes, for those who were introduced to the genre through Fortnite Festival.
Of course, a game like this would be meaningless without a good selection of songs. There were a few that were on display during Gamescom, but each had great note arrangements (also known as charts) that made completing them the right balance between challenging and fun. In general, the music variety so far is great, and I am glad to see major artists like Ed Sheeran, Metallica, Muse, and more being highlighted. The fact that RedOctane was seemingly not held back on the songs they could choose, despite being an indie developer, is fantastic to see.
Based on what I played, I believe that Stage Tour has the potential to be a hit for both long-time fans of the genre, as well as for those who have been wanting to try it out for a long time. It may not necessarily innovate on the mechanics, but the fact that it is able to offer that classic experience with plenty of options, music tracks, and modes is great. My amazement at the feat that this game is turning out to be only doubled once I realized that there would be no live-service mechanics, unlike other entries in the genre.
Stage Tour has so much potential, and I am optimistic that it will be able to deliver on its promise when it releases on December 10 for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
