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Guitar Hero 5

2009 video game

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ1955682 ↗
Source-derived summary

Guitar Hero 5 is a 2009 rhythm game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It is the fifth main installment and the ninth overall installment in the Guitar Hero series. The game was released internationally in September 2009 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles. Similar to the preceding title, Guitar Hero World Tour (2008), Guitar Hero 5 is geared towards playing in a four-person band experience, including lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The game is available as a standalone title, allowing players to use existing compatible instrument controllers, and as a bundle that provides these controllers. Guitar Hero 5 adds several new features, such as drop-in/drop-out play, bands composed of any combination of available instruments, a Rockfest competitive mode consisting of several various scoring mechanisms, and both song-specific and general Challenges to unlock new avatars, clothing, and other extras in the game. Many of these changes were added to make the game a more social experience, allowing players across a range of skill levels to be able to play cooperatively and competitively against each other both locally and online. The PlayStation 2 version is based on Guitar Hero World Tour, using the same gameplay UI as Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009), Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009), and Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009), albeit with a different Rock Meter design.

Guitar Hero 5's track list contains 85 songs by 83 separate artists, and like previous Guitar Hero games, several musicians with works in the game have been modeled through motion capture for playable characters in the game, including Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana, Shirley Manson, Matthew Bellamy, and Kurt Cobain. Players can also create their own character and instrument to play with.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Guitar Hero 5” as 2009 video game. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2008—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2009-09-01, 2009-09-16, 2009-09-11—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Guitar, Hero and video can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 2009 video game. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1955682. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 2008.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Guitar Hero 5 primary sources, Guitar Hero 5 archive and Guitar research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Guitar Hero 5” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.