The plastic guitar era never truly died; it just waited for the right encore. With the new CRKD Gibson SG guitar controller, that encore has finally arrived. 
Hot on the heels of its recently announced drum kit and the already well-regarded Gibson Les Paul controller, CRKD is bringing back one of the most recognizable silhouettes in rhythm gaming – the SG – and tuning it for a new generation of players on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.
At first glance, the CRKD Gibson SG looks like a love letter to the original Guitar Hero days, but underneath the retro styling is very modern engineering. The controller is officially designed for PS4 and PS5, yet also works on PC, making it flexible enough for everything from Fortnite Festival sessions to fan-made rhythm game clones. For players who grew up on plastic instruments, this is nostalgia with better parts. For younger players who only know what is popular right now, it is a chance to discover why plastic guitars once dominated living rooms.
The build is packed with thoughtful touches that go far beyond simple cosmetic homage. The star of the show is a Hall Effect strum bar with mechanical haptics, designed to feel crisp and responsive without the wear and tear issues of older controllers. Hall Effect sensors use magnets rather than physical contacts, which should help avoid the dreaded loose, mushy strum bar that haunted aging Guitar Hero and Rock Band peripherals.
CRKD has also repurposed hardware cues from a real Gibson SG in clever ways. The traditional pickup switcher has been transformed into a control hub surrounded by PlayStation face and shoulder buttons, making menu navigation and in-game actions feel more natural when you are already gripping the guitar. One of the volume knobs now acts as a selector for wired or wireless modes, letting you swap connection types without digging through menus. Hidden in the back of the controller’s headstock is a sneaky d-pad, giving you even finer control without cluttering up the classic front silhouette.
The neck is where the controller leans hardest into enthusiast territory. The five main neck buttons use mechanical switches for clear, tactile feedback, helping you feel every chord and fast run. Each fret is lined with RGB LEDs, adding a stage-like light show to your play sessions and making the controller stand out both on stream and in a dim living room. Just like CRKD’s Les Paul, the SG’s neck is swappable, allowing customization or easy replacement down the line. And of course, the whammy bar is present and ready for long sustains and over-the-top vibrato, just as rhythm game veterans expect.
All of this hardware is clearly aimed at Fortnite Festival, Epic’s in-Fortnite rhythm game developed by Harmonix, the same studio behind Rock Band. Fortnite Festival has quickly become the de facto modern platform for plastic instruments, and CRKD is positioning the Gibson SG as a premium way to play it. For many younger players whose first musical game is happening inside Fortnite rather than on a dusty Xbox 360, this controller could be their gateway into the wider world of rhythm games.
At the same time, CRKD knows a big part of the audience still misses the classic Rock Band and Guitar Hero era. For those players, the SG includes a Legacy Mode that supports older games, letting you revive those discs and downloads if you still have compatible hardware. On PS5, that mostly means using backward-compatible PS4 titles and setups where supported, but even that small bridge between generations matters. It is an answer to a question a lot of people quietly ask: is there anything beyond Fortnite Festival that makes a high-end guitar peripheral worth it on modern consoles? If you have a library of older titles and the right setup, the answer is increasingly yes.
CRKD is not alone in chasing the renewed interest in rhythm games. Turtle Beach-owned PDP has its own Riffmaster line of guitar controllers, including an excellent version for Nintendo Switch. Together, brands like CRKD and PDP are quietly rebuilding a space that had almost vanished, reintroducing these “good things” to players who might otherwise never know they existed. For veteran fans, that means better hardware and more choice than ever; for newcomers, it means discovering how satisfying it can be to nail a tricky solo on a plastic fretboard.
The CRKD Gibson SG currently comes only in black, keeping the look clean and classic. It is available to preorder on CRKD’s website at $134.99, with an estimated shipping window between December 15 and 19. That price plants it firmly in the premium accessory category, but the feature set backs it up: Hall Effect internals, mechanical switches, RGB frets, a swappable neck, smart button placement, wireless and wired modes, and a design that works across PS4, PS5, and PC.
In the end, the CRKD Gibson SG is less about reliving a single game and more about reviving an entire style of play. It gives long-time fans a refined, modern version of the hardware they loved, while finally putting a high-quality, guitar-shaped controller into the hands of players who have only ever known Fortnite and modern live-service titles. If the plastic guitar era is truly staging a comeback, this SG is one of the strongest arguments yet that the encore might be even better than the original show.