One of the greatest parts of last year's Saints Row IV was the inclusion of the dubstep gun. For the musically inclined the ability to choose a weapon that fired to a beat, forcing enemies to dance themselves to death, was no choice at all. Today Harmonix Music Systems announced Chroma, which looks like an entire game based on the musical gun concept. It's the best of both worlds, a first-person shooter where you have to listen to the music in order to better kill your enemies... oh, and it's going to be free-to-play.
This is a huge change for Harmonix. The much-loved developer of Rock Band, Frequency and Amplitude (not to mention the first two iterations of Guitar Hero) has never stepped outside the music genre before and while Chroma is certainly is not that far removed, the fact that it's a FPS, for the PC? It's unlike anything they've done before. Then again, after Rock Band where else could you possibly go with the music genre? They've already reached the peak. This is likely why they're co-developing Chroma with Hidden Path Entertainment, makers of Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Defense Grid.
Chroma features multiplayer matches that have players choosing different character classes to hunt down and kill each other in teams, but this is where the similarities to regular FPSes end. Music is everything here. A song begins right at the start of each match and you have to do everything to the beat. Move exactly to the beat and you'll gain movement bonuses, the same thing with firing your gun. Each map's songs perform a "Change-up" at set intervals, which will completely alter the landscape of the game, raising sniper towers or adding cover, for instance.
There are a number of classes, from a Tank that has a rocket launcher that does massive damage (and becomes homing if shot on a beat) to a Support class that can heal and shield her teammates. One class- the Engineer- even requires you to match notes on a track a la Rock Band and shoot his two pistols via left and right trigger pulls to the beat of the song. Each class has their own music that plays as they fire, although you can customize the loadout to pick your favorite type of sound- bass, guitar, drums, synthesizers- whatever kind of sound you want. Harmonix says that choosing music for each character on the team will feel like creating a band in their previous games.
Expect Chroma to hit Steam sometime later this year, absolutely free. For those rightfully worried about what the FTP model will mean for the game Harmonix has promised that it's going to have deep customization options but will be "smartly designed to preserve a fun and fair experience for all players." In other words, you can buy new maps, music, and modes, but there's nothing that will give anyone an advantage over other players. It's Steam-only for now but they're not ruling out any other consoles, so we'll have to see how this game does on PC first.
What more do you need to know? Sign up for the alpha over at the official site, crank your volume, and check out this trailer for the game. With one announcement Harmonix has created a game that's shot to the top of our must-play lists, and we can't wait to see more.
