The Daily Populous Monday March 3rd, 2025 evening edition
Authored by insider-gaming.com and submitted by alex040512

It was recently noticed that an advertisement for a new ‘Guitar Hero Mobile’ title had been surreptitiously uploaded to Activision’s official Instagram channel. While the post has since been hidden, it can still be accessed if you have the link. The ad, which bears shockingly obvious AI art, claims that a new Guitar Hero Mobile game will be released in 2025.

Fans of the franchise were quick to criticise the use of AI art, which is staring you in the face from the post on Instagram. This isn’t the first time, even in the last few weeks, that Activision has drawn criticism for using AI art in games.

In a post on Instagram, Activision revealed Guitar Hero Mobile with the tagline:

‘Play your way – Guitar Hero goes mobile’

Everything about the image just smacks of generative AI, sucking the soul of Guitar Hero clean out of the proposal. It leads us to question how long it would have taken for a human artist to create the same image, which is just a band on a stage with the traditional Guitar Hero prompt bar beneath it.

Bizarrely, the image shows a band featuring four guitarists, no drummer, no vocalist, and the prompt bar has two blue paths.

It’s like they want us to hate them.

In September 2024, I reported on Phil Spencer’s revelation that he regrets passing on Destiny and Guitar Hero many years ago. The industry veteran revealed that he could have pulled an exclusivity deal on these titles, but he didn’t believe Guitar Hero, the arcade game with plastic instruments, would ‘work’.

Since Guitar Hero disappeared from the market, Fortnite Festival has stepped up to fill the void. Released in 2023, Fortnite Festival is a Guitar Hero-styled game that invites users to enjoy a similar experience, complete with licensed soundtracks. From 2024 onwards, peripheral companies started manufacturing plastic guitars to be used in Fortnite Festival.

What do you think about the Guitar Hero Mobile ad? Does the obvious AI art get under your skin? Let me know in the comments.

For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that the Twisted Metal reboot would have been a battle royale game.

honeybeebryce on March 3rd, 2025 at 18:51 UTC »

I will never be gaslit into thinking AI art is normal.

If a business can’t even be bothered to just suck it up and hire artists, then they must be slimy and willing to cut corners. I’ll be sure to keep my wallet away

RyuugaDota on March 3rd, 2025 at 15:07 UTC »

This is especially egregious lmao. It looks like the kind of stuff that comes out of free first gen DALL-E prompts... I haven't seen those ugly wobbly circles from AI art in literal years now as crazy as that sounds...

TheTabman on March 3rd, 2025 at 12:38 UTC »

I mean, yeah, AI "art" generally sucks. But Jeeeesus, this is especially terrible. Whoever approved this has no business working in game dev or marketing.