Rocksmith was originally 'Guitar Rising', Ubisoft discusses the game's origins

Rocksmith launches in the UK this week, and producer Jason Schroeder has shared new details around the game's initial concept and why he feels that it wasn't inspired by the success of both Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

Speaking with AusGamers, Schroeder discussed Rocksmith's conception, "I think it’s a long road that led from no game to Rocksmith, but I think a lot of it was: the industry and musicians and everyone saying 'oh, these games are cool, but someone should do it with a real guitar'. Everyone thought 'someone should do it; someone should do it'."

"Then Ubisoft ended up with a technology for a game called Guitar Rising,"Schroeder added, "that was out in the world - it was basically a PC tech demo of note detection -- and that project was given to our Creative Director Paul Cross and Senior Producer Nao Higo, and they’re game people - they had no idea how to play guitar."

"So they were one of the first project teams to look at one of these real instrument games, and come at it from a purely game design perspective and say 'well, what do we need to do to make it fun, and make it work for us?'. So Guitar Rising became Rocksmith, as they changed it from a horizontal scrolling tab - which didn’t work for a non guitar player - to the vertical scrolling notes that we have now."

"And it changed from selecting your difficulty," Schroeder concluded, "and being able to get yourself into a lot of overwhelming trouble -- where you would decide you’re going to give up, because you’re never going to play that many notes -- to dynamic difficulty, which is just: when you get a note correct, and prove that you’re able to keep up with the game, we’ll just keeping adding in more notes until you’re challenged."

Rocksmith is a challenging game but it does indeed help anyone who wants to try and learn guitar or bass. You can check it out across Europe from September 28th.