Guitar Hero 7 was in the works in 2011, development described as "a disaster"

Guitar Hero 7 was in the works at Vicarious Visions until the game was cancelled mid-development in early 2011, according to a Kotaku source.

The source said the music simulation game was going to go back to its roots by forgoing the multiple instrument peripherals introduced with Warriors of Rock. The reason, according to the source, was due to the "rocky development cycle," which resulted in an all out "disaster" due to Vicarious Vision's penchant for "overreaching with its console games."

GH7's peripheral, was also a "six stringed guitar."

"Not a real guitar, or even full six-stringed," said the source. "It had the classic Guitar Hero buttons on the neck with one extra new button, and six strings where the strum bar used to be."

The source went on to say early prototypes featured strings which were "unresponsive and loose," and the peripheral would have cost a fortune to make.

"No one could figure out a way to make it so your average Joe could buy one," the source claimed.

Not all was bad though at the beginning, as the actual game contained nice camera cuts unique to the song with visual changes occurring in the venue along with chord changes or progression in the song.

"They started designing locations," said the source "A tomb, the back of a moving truck. The locations were going to match the songs. Each song would have it's own music video. It was a nice idea, and some of the concepts looked great. Then they realized they didn't have any songs. Everything was being built around 'Turn The Page - Metallica,' and 'A Thing Called Love - The Darkness.' They'd change the venues and animations as the songs came in.

"When the songs started coming in, a great sense of dread came about everyone with an active brain. The game had all of the worst hits from the 1990's. They realized that, with our lack of budget and time, they couldn't get quality music so they bought bargain basement music like 'Closing time' and 'Sex and Candy.' There were some songs in there that had been used at least three times in the GH franchises before."

Guitar Hero 7 was given a two year development cycle, but it was eventually halted once Activision president Eric Hirshberg had a look at it, and wasn't impressed, apparently.

It wasn't long after this members of the team were let go.

You can read the entire thing through the link.