We knew it was coming, and got some tantalizing details already, but now Activision has officially confirmed Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock — and dropped some new details.

The game does indeed include a new, fantasy-based Quest Mode, narrated by Gene Simmons — but he also serves as the voice of the Demi-God, the patron saint of rock whose aid you’ll be seeking in the quest to destroy “The Beast” and “save rock n’ roll.”

Speaking of Quest Mode: Characters will, in fact, gain the ability to transform into “rock warriors” — new forms that give each character a unique special ability. You can see a preview of the transformations in this brief teaser trailer, just released this morning at GameTrailers:

But the big reveal here is that the game’s reported Quickplay+ mode, which adds special challenges like Band Streak and “Power Challenge,” will be playable with “most downloadable and importable songs from Guitar Hero World Tour forward.” It’s a clever move, one that helps bring older tracks into the Warriors of Rock experience, and gives players a reason to dust off familiar tracks for in-game rewards.

Of course, the mode will be available for all of the songs on the disc, too — all 90-plus tracks. I’ll detail all the revealed tracks in a separate post in a bit, but for now I’ll tell you that the song list is aiming to focus more narrowly on straight-up rock, as opposed to the more varied approach of Guitar Hero 5. It includes some heavy hitters from bands like Queen (specifically, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which makes me think they’ve got to be adding harmonies in, too), Black Sabbath, Muse, Slayer, and DragonForce. The game also includes “Sudden Death,” a track Dave Mustaine of Megadeth composed specifically for the game, as he suggested a couple weeks ago — and just spoke to Rolling Stone at length about here.

In other news, as suggested by the Amazon listing, the game will be shipping alongside a new guitar. Activision describes it thusly: “an all-new, show-stopping guitar controller that was inspired and born from the game’s unique art style and specifically made for shredding.” Which really doesn’t tell us much, does it? I’m pretty sure it’ll be all tricked out in fantasy style– I’m expecting something along the lines of a Kit Rae sword — but calling it “the next evolution in finger-fretting” doesn’t really help much in terms of description. (Though now that I think about it, the emphasis on fingers makes me wonder if the whole guitar will be touch-sensitive, like the higher frets on the World Tour guitar. As long as there’s a clear distinction between the different frets, I’d like that.)

It’s interesting to see Guitar Hero fully embracing (or perhaps “re-embracing” might be a better word) the over-the-top rock-fantasy approach, especially given Guitar Hero 5′s more measured style and varied track list. But I’ve had the impression that fans of the earlier games were disappointed by GH5′s direction, so this may prove more satisfying.

What do you think? Do you like this approach?