14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Harmonix surprised a lot of players with the reveal of Chroma – a first-person shooter that’s built to have music as the main mechanic and which will use a free-to-play business model – and the team is now willing to offer some interesting details on the core features.
The most advanced classes in the game are built around beatmatching, able to only fire when players mimic a scrolling beat with the left and the right triggers.
They do have auto-aim, in order to keep them competitive, but gamers still have to be simultaneously aware of the beat, the movement of their enemies and the shifting environment, which changes based on the track’s choruses and bridges.
John Drake, a director working on Chroma, tells Gamasutra that, “The guys at Harmonix who were on the beatmatching crew are all pretty solid at cranking through the beatmatch without hesitation. I've found other people who are not shooter players, but who are more into rhythm games, gravitated toward it because of the autoaim.”
Beatmatching classes exist to make sure that both shooter and rhythm fans are able to be equally competitive when first launching Chroma.
The development team knows that some of the mechanics can be difficult to pick up at first and plans to add extensive tutorials to the game in order to make them easier to understand.
Drake adds, “When they try to learn it during combat it's almost impossible.”
The game will also offer more traditional classes in order to make the classic first-person shooter fan feel right at home.
Chroma will allow players to experience fast and engaging matches with almost all aspects of the title built on the music tracks that are being played.
Harmonix is not talking about launch platforms at the moment and the game does not currently have a release window.