The curious history of how Guitar Hero stormed video games

Guitar Hero is making its triumphant return in October. There’s a brand-new guitar controller this time out. The gimmick is warmly familiar to gamers—yet we haven’t been given a Hero title in five years. That’s long enough for vibrant nostalgia.

Let’s take a look back and recall what an absolutely insane phenomenon it was back in the mid-to-late aughts.

Guitar Hero was based on Konami’s Guitar Freaks, and each song was recorded with the same model of guitar used by the original bands. For its part, Guitar Hero 3 broke the record for fastest sales to $1 billion. You’ll be the life of the party with all those cool facts when Guitar Hero Live hits shelves on Oct. 20.

Photo via Anssi Koskinen/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)