Guitar Hero World Tour: Definitive Edition (2025)

Guitar Hero World Tour: Definitive Edition

Developer(s)

GHWT:DE Team

Publisher(s)

Series

Guitar Hero's modding community for Guitar Hero World Tour

Platform(s)

Microsoft Windows

Release date(s)

v1.0: December 25, 2021
v1.1: April 21, 2023
v1.2: July 23, 2023

Development and updates[]

v1.0 — Initial release[]

A Discord community server for the anticipated Guitar Hero World Tour: Definition Edition was officially launched on August 5, 2021. Progress of the mod were announced in the Discord server's #wtde-announements on features to come.

v1.0.0 of Guitar Hero World Tour: Definitive Edition was publicly released on December 25, 2021. Guitar Hero World Tour continually received nightly updates in the volatile branch, adding newly features and fixes over the months until the next major release 9 months later.^[1]

An early access beta release for the upcoming v1.0.1 was released on September 30, 2022 that included an updater that downloads an update form the project's beta repository. This beta included faster game saving/loading system, a clip/performance system overhaul, more characters and CAR pieces (but with the removal of the Midori character), in-game Rich Presence toggle (located in Options > GH:DE Options > Extra Options), debug.txt has logging disabled in songs by default to prevent stuttering and lag (can be re-enabled in Extra Options), audio buffering length increased from 2048 to 4096, crowd and Havok physics enabled by default, new camera debug menu, setlist categories for other Guitar Hero DLCs, duplicate song charts ignored, new camera shots and post-processing effects for various Guitar Hero song packs of later games.^[2]

v1.0.1 was released on October 17, 2022. This update included Halloween-themed antics as well as several fixes including rich presence fix, drummer's motion cameras in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock songs. This update also added a character model of the well-known Guitar Hero player Acai as a playable character.^[3] v1.0.2. was a smaller update that was shortly released two days later that included a fallback system to show default animations if a song is missing loop animations to prevent game crashes.^[4]

v1.0.3 was released on November 20, 2022 and included a new updater and launcher. This update several fixes and included extra characters and guitar such as some unlockable characters from Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (including The Hand, Ben Franklin, Voodoo Doctor), Johnny Cash (including his guitar and band members) and guitars from Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, more animations and better character physics, a menu for online multiplayer, and more.^[5]

v1.0.3 also release minor updates starting with v1.0.3.1 (formerly v1.0.31) on November 26, 2022^[6] along with an update for the website's online play on November 29, 2018.^[7]

v1.0.3.2 was released on December 1, 2022, which included heavy stability fixes for save system, 4-player band support on AutoLaunch, FPS limiter in Graphics, integrity checks for strum, finger, and fret animations, Christmas theming, the final registry fix, Haley Williams character decoded, and loop animations to fix Mr. Roboto's animation.^[8]
v1.0.3.3, released on December 19, 2022, included the Tony Hawk's Underground 2 character Aborigine, added "Song#", "GamerTag#", and "Difficulty#" support to AutoLaunch, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock guitar designs, and various fixes including a stability fix.^[9]
v1.0.3.4, released on December 21, 2022 had animation-released stability fixes, better error handling, icon for Aborigine, and top score fixes.^[10]
v1.0.3.5, released on December 25, 2022, the first anniversary update for Guitar Hero World Tour: Definition Edition that came with an announcement trailer for it.^[11] It included Tony Hawk CAR items (Pirate Hat from the Xbox 360 version of Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and remodeled Devil Horns from Tony Hawk's Underground 2), fixes for lyrics crashing, added missing loop animations for Mr. Roboto female vocalist.
v1.0.3.6, released on December 27, 2022, included many Tony Hawk game CAR items, texture bug fixes, and a variety of stability fixes.^[12]
v1.0.3.7, released on December 30, 2022 had more stability fixes and the game should no longer freeze on exit.^[13]
v1.0.3.8, released on January 1, 2023 added new parameters for song.ini files for song covers among custom songs along with more stability fixes.^[14] New parameters include CoverArtist and CoverYear and will display at the start of the song the name of the cover artist and the year they were covered in.
As of January 4, 2003, the GHWT:DE website officially supports online account registration for online multiplayer.^[15]
v1.0.3.9, released on January 15, 2023, included characters from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (Bret Michaels, The Female Singer, Izzy Sparks, and Violet), Santana band members, as well as more guitar models, and more, along with various other fixes. Additionally, the launcher was updated to V3 with language selection, whammy SFX toggle, and more.^[16]
v1.0.3.10, which was a short fix, was released on January 17, 2023, included DJ Hero guitar and a fix for an animation crash related to loading of band animation .paks.^[17]
v1.0.3.11, released on January 25, 2023, included Nevermind 2.0, some CAR items, Vocality mic from Band Hero, and other small improvements and crash fixes.^[18]
v1.0.3.12, released on January 31, 2023, included Buckethead, Billie Joe Armstrong, Valentine's, Guitar Hero: Metallica guitars, and additional fixes.^[19]

After two months of no updates, version 1.0.99.0 was stated to be released on April 1, 2023, stating there are stability fixes and adjusting the way mods are loaded with notes stating "- Important fixes, trust me", but that was an April Fool's prank. The only real change that was made in the April Fool's update was the inclusion of the text line only ignore_this in the .gitignore file.^[20]

v1.1 — VanTallica[]

The next major update, version 1.1.0.0, did release on April 21, 2023, titled "VanTallica". This updated added new characters, classic character skins, guitar and bass models from Guitar Hero: Metallica and Van Halen, several other graphical and audio additions and fixes, all venues from Guitar Hero: Metallica, Smash Hits, and Van Halen, Desert Rock Tour and Lou's Inferno venues from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Hypersphere venue created by Viran, Xbox 360 versions of Guitar Hero World Tour venues, and additional debug features.^[21]Minor updates for v1.1.0.x up to v1.1.0.5 were released daily that included quality-of-life fixes and stability improvements.

v1.1.0.5, released on April 26, 2023, added Warriors of Rock skins of the classic characters and guitars and new song progression HUDs.
v1.1.0.6, released on April 30, 2023, included Guitar Hero: Metallica's HUD.
v1.1.0.7, released on May 4, 2023, included Free Play mode, missing highways from other Guitar Hero video games, and more.
v1.1.0.8, released on May 16, 2023, including Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades and Guitar Hero III: Legend of Rock guitar models, new venue cameras, and more.

Skipping v1.1.0.9 after voting for a new major release, v1.1.1.0 was released on June 4, 2023 followed by a quick v1.1.1.1 fix later that day. ^[22] Both the song loader and mod loader were completely written with improved speed performance, caching new songs and loading mods faster, as well as giving each (custom) song in their .pak file a unique checksum that would detectable during online play when all player share the same song and charts. Due to this change for songs' checksums, players using updates prior to v1.1.1.0 will not be able to play custom songs with players using v1.1.1.0 or newer. This update also includes Xavier Stone's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock model and additional instrumental models from the game along with several fixes. The following updates up to v1.1.1.5 provided more stability fixes, extra venue and lightshow features (v1.1.1.4), and more guitars and guitar skins (v1.1.1.2 and v1.1.1.3 respectively)

v1.2 — Band Hero 5[]

Shortly after, version 1.2.0.0, was released on July 23, 2023, titled "Band Hero 5".^[23] As v1.1 "VanTallica" was focused on the release of venues and characters from Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Van Halen, v1.2 "Band Hero 5" is focus on the release of venues from Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero. However, unlike the VanTallica update, the Band Hero 5 update started off somewhat incomplete as most Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero venues are in "beta" testing.

Other features included in the v1.2 release are customizable rockers being able to be saved in .car file format (allowing players to back-up the creation of their rockers), cam pulse (that was introduced in Guitar Hero: Metallica), launcher fixes, spotlight flare fixes, and many more content, improvements, and features.

The following minor updates included small fixes. v1.2.0.3 included Chad Muska's Tony Hawk's Underground and Bullfighter's Tony Hawk's Underground 2 character models.^[24] v1.2.0.4 includes an "Installed Mods" menu in the Options screen, showing all installed mods and mods with errors, as well as adding Warrior Johnny and Warrior Axel guitar models from Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.^[25]

Notable features[]

Additional characters: Guitar Hero World Tour: Definitive Edition comes pre-loaded with a wide array of different characters and more characters can be unlocked through Career Mode.
Gem themes: Select different gem/note themes on the highway including Guitar Hero World Tour gem notes, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock gem notes, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock gem notes, as well as a multitude of extra color themes. Each gem theme can be visually previewed during selection.
Extra Practice speeds: Songs in practice modes can be played at any speed of the user's choice from a super slow of 20% to a fast 200%.
User installed content: Users can easily install user-created content to the mod folder of the games files, such as new characters, songs, and more.
Instrument selection: Design your characters' guitar or bass in Create-A-Rocker.
Debug options: Access to the developer's menu, the logging console, and other things.
Enhanced graphical options: Disable Depth of Field or enable borderless windowed mode.
Selectable microphone device: Ability to use any of your microphones in your microphone driver for Vocals.
Co-existing installation: The base version of Guitar Hero World Tour can still be played without these extra modifications.
Any controller for any instrument: Gamepad support and re-bind any gamepad/instrumental controls to play any instrument. (Experimental)

Soundtrack[]

Main article: Setlist in Guitar Hero World Tour

The Guitar Hero World Tour's soundtrack remains untouched in Guitar Hero World Tour: Definitive Edition. However, players can now easily and externally add their own songs (outside the Music Studio) into the game as well as importing songs from all other games, each having their own setlist category. This does not affect the setlist in the base Guitar Hero World Tour video game.