Guitar Hero Live follows similar gameplay to previous installments in the series, requiring players to use a guitar-shaped controller with buttons and a strum bar to match notes on a scrolling "highway" corresponding to notes played in a song. In contrast to the previous five-button design, the
Guitar Hero Live controller features six buttons arranged into two rows of three. The frets are represented by a "note highway", three scrolling lanes on-screen, containing either black or white notes representing the two rows. Lower difficulty levels use one row of buttons, while higher difficulties may include "chords" that use a combination of buttons from both rows. The game typically maps out
power chords to use the top row of buttons, while modifications of those chords include others from the bottom row. Fast-moving sections of songs may employ the use of
hammer-on and
pull-off notes, marked with a special outline, which can be played without using the strum bar. The game also retains the concept of
open strumming introduced in previous
Guitar Hero titles, represented as a horizontal bar across the lanes and requiring the player to hit the strum bar without pressing any fret keys. The game is playable via an
app on
iOS mobile devices, including the
fourth-generation Apple TV. This version supports both "touch" mode and support for an optional
Bluetooth-enabled guitar controller that provides "[the] full game in an uncompromised way" according to Activision. When in touch mode, the note display geared towards the 6-button controller is replaced with four touch-screen buttons but otherwise retains the same gameplay; with the controller, the game otherwise plays the same. Due to the size of the game relative to storage space on most mobile devices,
Guitar Hero Live on iOS units requires a persistent Internet connection as all songs, including those that are normally part of the console on-disc soundtrack, are streamed from Activision's servers when played.
GH Live In the game's primary single-player mode, titled
GH Live within the game, the player completes songs while experiencing full-motion video taken from the
first-person perspective of a band's lead guitarist. The video includes shots of the audience and the band members. As the player performs the songs, the audience responds positively to good performances when few mistakes are made. If the player makes several mistakes in a row, the audience will become critical and start to jeer at the performer. To win back the crowd, the player can either match more notes correctly, or can use collected Hero Power to rapidly regain their interest. Hero Power, replacing Star Power from previous
Guitar Hero games, is collected by correctly playing marked series of notes on the track; Hero Power can be accumulated, marked as on-screen guitar picks next to the track, to be used at later times. The player can release Hero Power for a limited time by either tilting the guitar controller upward or hitting a special button on the controller. The career mode is broken up into a dozen-some show sets, each set consisting of about 3–5 songs. The video for each set includes the band's introduction, banter between the band and crowd between songs, and final ovations on conclusion of the show. The player must unlock each set in order as to move forward. The player then unlocks the ability to play the individual songs outside of sets. When a song was complete, the player was ranked based on their performance with the other tracked players, and awarded
experience points, Coins, and other bonuses. Experience points are used to raise the player's rank in the
GHTV metagame, allowing them to unlock player card skins and other features of
GHTV, including Play tokens. New songs to
GHTV were typically introduced via limited-time "Premium Shows", which ran for a week or more; these songs were then moved into the on-demand catalog and later into the normal
GHTV rotation. Access to Premium Shows could be purchased with Hero Cash, or by completing several specific songs in either on-demand or on rotation play. Within the Premium Shows, players competed in the same manner as with normal
GHTV songs and could earn unique in-game rewards, such as coins or alternate skins for the on-screen note "highway". Players could purchase a "Party Pass" that allowed full access to all of
GHTVs on-demand songs and paid features for 24 hours, a mode that FreeStyleGames envisioned to be used when players are hosting large parties or similar events. In addition to regular content,
GHTV was used to provide specialty programming.
GHTV offered curated music video shows with host segments wrapped around playable songs; the first such show features songs selected by the band
Avenged Sevenfold and included commentary by the band on these selections.
Def Leppard used
GHTV to premiere their new music video for their single "Dangerous" in January 2016. Activision offered a contest for players to win prizes by participating in a special "Shred-a-Thon" premium show, highlighting the addition of
DragonForce's "
Through the Fire and Flames"—one of the most notoriously difficult songs that has appeared in other
Guitar Hero titles—to the
GHTV setlist. Activision announced in June 2018 that the GHTV servers will be shut down on 1 December 2018, rendering this functionality unusable. Players will still be able to play songs on disc. The iOS app was also delisted as its functionality would also cease with the shut down of the GHTV servers. ==Soundtrack==