A gamepad gets a place in Stage Tour's band

Three note highways fill the bottom of the screen in Stage Tour, with a vocal line running above them. That's one way to put four people on stage. You can also hand the fourth player a gamepad. Their part can skip from the guitar to the drums or follow the singer, all on one track. If you've ever been one guitar short of getting everyone into a song, that's a particularly welcome addition.

RedOctane Games' rhythm game arrives on 10 December 2026 for Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. The launch setlist spans six decades and more than 90 licensed songs. Metallica's "Lux Æterna" sits in the same songbook as Weezer's "Island in the Sun" and Duran Duran's "Rio". A group can share the sofa or play together online across those platforms.

What the gamepad plays

Take the Lead part on a guitar controller and you'll generally follow the melody, which can come from a horn or a synth as readily as a guitar. Groove follows the backing parts and can move between bass, rhythm guitar and keys. Pick Arcade on a gamepad or PC keyboard and you get a chart written for those controls. A single Arcade chart can draw from the guitar, bass, drums and vocals across one song, so the part you're following can change while your hands stay in place.

Arcade comes in four- and five-lane versions. The four-lane chart uses green, red, blue and orange notes. The fifth lane adds yellow, which you can hit with either of two buttons. Both chart types cover the whole launch setlist, and the game supports custom button mappings. Someone new to the note highway can choose Easy, while a player who likes working through a chart can stick with the same controller on Expert.

Four places, any mix

Quickplay and Judgements both let up to four people mix instrument types. Four guitarists can play together, or a singer and a drummer can share the stage with two people on pads. Judgements gives the group a reason to revisit the same song once everyone knows their part. It awards points according to how precisely you hit each note, from Okay through to Perfect, with one million as the maximum score. Drummers also get an Expert Plus difficulty, so a group can make room for someone who wants the hardest drum charts alongside someone just learning their buttons.

Karaoke removes the recorded lead vocal and scores your timing. You can sing in whatever key suits you and carry on to the end of the song. That gives a room full of people a way to linger on a chorus without anyone failing out. If the microphone is the main draw for your group, our Let's Sing ABBA preview covers a karaoke game built around duets and medleys.

When the others go home

Tour is a solo run of 15 songs, grouped into five sets. The third track in each set brings a boss modifier or challenge, and failing a song ends the run. You can tackle it on Lead, Groove or either Arcade chart type. Along the way you earn Stars from your performances and crowd goals, then spend them on Effect Pedals and consumables. The Signature Effect you pick at the start stays with you throughout and sets the run's difficulty.

The Strike Bowler pedal gives you an extra ten on your streak for every ten notes you hit in a row, but a miss takes away twice the usual Crowd Energy. It's an appealing pedal for a player who can string together long passages. The cost shows up as soon as the streak breaks, and every third song brings an extra complication. A practice session on a tricky track has a purpose when missing notes on tour can send you back to the first venue.

Which gear can come along?

PC players can bring an Xbox 360 Guitar Hero Xplorer, for example. RedOctane lists the PlayStation Riffmaster with its official dongle on PS5, the Xbox version with its dongle on Xbox Series X|S and the Switch Riffmaster on Switch 2. RedOctane is working on a Switch 2 version of its drum kit for after launch. Its compatibility list has yet to confirm a legacy drum kit for the console. If you're putting a band together there for launch, plan its line-up around the guitar, microphones and pads.

The most inviting part of that line-up is the seat you can fill with a controller you've already got. Give it to someone who knows every word of "Just Like Heaven" and has never touched a five-fret guitar. They can sing it in Karaoke, play it on a pad in Quickplay or take that same pad on a solo Tour once the rest of the band has gone home.