Mike Snider from USA Today is reporting:

In the three years since Guitar Hero stole the video game stage, fast-fingered consumers have bought more than 22 million units. Now, Activision and developer Neversoft are looking to kick the franchise up a notch with Guitar Hero: METALLICA, due early in 2009.

Designed to challenge hard-core players, the game "is a lot harder, especially on drums. Well, it's a lot harder all around, to tell the truth," says lead designer Alan Flores. "Most of the songs have a higher level of difficulty, certainly at the end of the game when you are playing the old-school Metallica stuff where you play really, really fast and there's lot of double bass (drum) playing, fast guitar playing and crazy leads."

The time is right for a Metallica game. The band is back atop the heavy metal world. Its latest album, Death Magnetic, has gone platinum after premiering at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 chart - its fifth consecutive album to do so. It also received four Grammy nominations - best rock album, best recording package, rock instrumental ('Suicide And Redemption') and best metal performance ('My Apocalypse') - and the band is a 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee.

USA Today talked with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist Kirk Hammett, as well as Flores, about the upcoming game.

Q: How did this game come about?

Flores: "I think their interest in the project really fueled it. Both Lars' and (singer) James (Hetfield's) kids play Guitar Hero and they were really excited about it. They wanted to do it and, of course, we wanted to do it, so it made sense."

Ulrich: "I think my kids decided for me. I was first introduced to Guitar Hero in my house about a year ago by my kids (sons Myles, 10, and Layne, 7; he also has a 1-year-old son, Bryce, with his girlfriend, actress Connie Nielsen). They became big fans of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and all the bands I grew up on. It seemed like this was the first video game that really brought the family together. We were all sitting there and we were all sharing it. It wasn't something that was just about the person playing, it was about everybody. It became a collective thing. This thing on a worldwide basis was obviously turning into a phenomenon. There is a saying in Metallicaland: "This is what we call a no-brainer."

Hammett: I don't play video games very much, but I love what Guitar Hero does for young kids, actually kids of all ages.

Q: What is the story line?

Flores: "It doesn't play out chronologically. We couldn't do that because then you would play something off of (the band's first album from 1983) Kill 'Em All and you would throw the controller against the wall and stop playing. We have to do it based on difficulty. (At the start) you play two songs as Metallica, and you are so inspired by Metallica that you decide to create your own band. Then you follow Metallica around to all these iconic venues they have played."

Ulrich: "We wanted a little bit of a different slant. Basically, you start out and you play some songs and you get warmed up, and there's a competition. We're trying to pick a band to play with us and go on the road with us."

Hammett: "There is one venue called The Stone, a nightclub in San Francisco that we would play regularly at the beginning of our career, and another in London, The Hammersmith Odeon (now called the Hammersmith Apollo) we would play in the late '80s. It's nice to be able to travel back to that point in your career and relive it in the game."

Read more here.

More Guitar Hero: Metallica details can be found here.