Guitar Hero World Tour will build on the existing gameplay from previous Guitar Hero games. The Star Power feature which has appeared throughout the Guitar
Hero series is coming back. The traditional single player Career Mode
has been reworked. Instead of playing through a setlist, players will
encounter gigs during career mode, which offer a choice of songs to
play; one does not, however, have to complete every song in the list to
proceed. The difficulty levels include a new difficulty called
"Beginner" as well as the regular difficulty modes (Easy, Medium, Hard, and
Expert), this Career Mode will allow players to drop to a lower
difficulty without restarting their careers if they have difficulty
with one song. The player will also be able to switch to a different
instrument during the same Career without having to restart. There are
five total instrument career modes within the game: lead guitar, bass
guitar, drums, vocals, and online/offline full band.
There is also a Band Career mode, which can be advanced by oneself
or with others offline or online. A player that has not progressed as
far as another player's band will still gain benefits for successfully
completing songs when playing together. The interface for playing with
others is described by Game Informer as being the same as the one used in Rock Band.[6] Full four-player bands will be able to compete with other bands online in a "Battle of the Band" mode.
The game adds in an "Easy Rhythm" guitar difficulty that is aimed to
allow parents to have their kids participate in the game; notes are
generally simple straight lines in time with bass drum beats, and only
require any fret button to be held while the note is strummed. The bass
guitar player has been given new mechanics, including simulating the
open E string on real bass guitars during play, indicated by a sixth
note in the bass' note track and played by strumming without pressing a
fret button.
A player on drums will activate Star Power by striking both cymbal pads
on the controller at the same time. The drummer will also have special
sections of songs open for drum solos, emphasized by in-game
choreography that focuses on the drummer.
The Boss Battles that were present in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will return; however, the format has been tweaked to remove the focus
on attack power-ups. Artists are writing new original songs yet again
for their battles. Unlike rival competing games, such as Rock Band, downloadable tracks are available for all consoles, excluding the PS2.