Metallica Drops Guitar Hero Hints

Yes, there is a Guitar Hero: Metallica game coming, and it's slated to ship by March 31, 2009. But we've known that since early June. That doesn't stop Metallica's Lars Ulrich (pictured, with teeth) from being coy:

Let’s put it this way, [our next album] Death Magnetic comes out in September, and the day it comes out, it will be available in the Guitar Hero 3 format, which we’re obviously super-psyched about. As I’ve born witness to in my house, its all about the next generation. My kids play Guitar Hero every day, and to be able to get the Metallica record the day it comes out, that’s super cool.

There’s an Aerosmith game out there that’s super successful, and if somebody’s gonna follow that up…we’re talking, and its exciting, and the people at Guitar Hero and Activision are rapidly becoming our best new friends in the world. You can put the rest of it together yourself.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I think that maybe, just maybe, he's talking about a Guitar Hero Metallica game. Hit the jump for the video proof.

Metallica Album DLC Also For Guitar Hero World Tour

Metallica DLC Is Entire Metallica Album

Red Octane's Kai Huang said during today's Microsoft address that there'd be some Metallica DLC coming for Guitar Hero, to coincide with their latest album, Death Magnetic. Well, it's not coinciding with it as much as it is the album, with a note on Metallica's homepage informing fans that, on the same day the album's released in stores, you'll be able to download all of its songs in Guitar Hero III. They also say there'll be Death Magnetic content for Guitar Hero World Tour as well, but info on that isn't quite as specific.

"Death Magnetic," the entire album, available for Guitar Hero too! [Metallica, via Guitar Hero News]

Red Octane founder Kai Huang took the stage today at Microsoft's E3 2008 presser to toss out a few pertinent Guitar Hero related tidbits. First up, REM DLC is coming, and Xbox 360 owners will get first shot at it when it drops. Then Huang revealed that Van Halen and The Eagles will be completely exclusive to Guitar Hero: World Tour. No Hot For Teacher for Rock Band? Not fair.

Finally, Metallica is coming to Guitar Hero in a big way, with DLC being readied to release alongside their new album, Death Magnetic, which is guaranteed to completely make up for Saint Sinner...as if any album could actually contain such power.

When Activision stealth announced the release of Guitar Hero: Metallica via an SEC filing, fears of artist exclusivity gripped Rock Band fans. After all, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had referred to Aerosmith as "proprietary" to the Guitar Hero format earlier this year.

We contacted Activision to find out if Metallica getting the titular treatment in a new Guitar Hero game meant that they'd be locked in to that particular brand. "We do no have further comment beyond what was in the SEC filing" read a corporate statement. No help there.

Harmonix reps, on the other hand, helped to calm our fears, if just a bit.

The next artist to get top billing in the Guitar Hero franchise is Metallica, as Wedbush Morgan analyst Edward Woo uncovered the fiscal 2009 release of Guitar Hero: Metallica in a recent filling with the SEC. Said to ship by March 31 of '09—the end of Activision's financial year—it appears that the metal outfit will get Guitar Hero: Aerosmith style treatment with a heavy dose of heavy rock. Metallica's "One" was already featured in Guitar Hero III, with additional tracks already available on Rock Band.

We were expecting to hear that Van Halen was the next group to be so prominently featured, but perhaps Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was just toying with us. Regardless, let's just hope there's more ...And Justice For All packed into this thing than there is Load.

Guitar Hero: Metallica due by Q1 '09 [GameSpot - thanks, John!]

Lars Ulrich Ponders Guitar Hero Signing Coolness

Rolling Stone magazine caught up with Metallica last week at their Record Store Day signing event in California, where they interviewed drummer Lars Ulrich, demonstrating the sort of hard-hitting interview questions that have made Rolling Stone a shining example of everything good about pop culture journalism.

You signed a lot of Guitar Hero controllers. Is that cool?

It's fucking way cool.

Our kids love playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It's awesome. There's something really positive coming out of video games. It's so cool to sit there and have your kids talk to you about Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and Soundgarden.

I wrote up a pretty nice three-page package on Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 for the Rocky Mountain News before I left for Australia. Most of it is geared to a pretty general audience, meaning it's a lot of explanation, impressions and factoids, but one of the stories in the package is pretty packed with interesting details for even hard-core gamers.

I spoke with Paul DeGooyer, MTV's senior vice president of home entertainment, music and games, not once but twice to write With 'Band' in hand, MTV eyes evolution. (My harddrive crashed and I lost all my notes :( ).

In the story DeGooyer touches on some interesting things, including MTV's take on whether Rock Band will be coming to the channel as its own television show, how the Grateful Dead helped tweaked the game and Metallica's deal for the game.

Hit the jump for the details.