The developer of the Rock Band series is creating a brand new first-person shooter game that blends music with frantic action. Harmonix, who last made Dance Central 3, has announced Chroma, a "free-to-play, music-driven, first-person, multiplayer shooter" coming to the PC and Steam.

This may seem like a tall order from the studio best known for allowing video game fans to play some of their favorite songs with virtual instruments, but John Drake, Harmonix director of publishing and PR, believes Chroma will delight both music and shooter fans alike. Drake said he wants the game to appeal to fans of both genres and allow for both types of fans to enjoy the game right from the start.

"We want to make sure that shooter players can come in, even if they're not musical, and actually play the game pretty much right away and feel good about it," Drake told Gamespot. "And we want to make sure that music fans who aren't hardcore shooter players have an access point to come and be 'beat heads' who are really good at the game in a different way. The past couple months has been about finding the sweet spot between those two different things."

To help develop the game, Harmonix is partnering with Hidden Path Entertainment, best known for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Chroma will take conventional first-person shooter tropes and add a musical flair. For example the Assault class character will have a standard machine gun as a weapon, and also a grenade launcher that will shoot explosives that go off only on the down beat. The Engineer can use two pistols at once, but in order to fire them the character will need to use a note path similar to those found in Rock Band games.

The Sneak is a sniper class character, and by following the on-screen cues for when the game's music is on downbeat, users will be able to get one-hit kills on foes. Support characters can heal characters or shield them for damage. Tanks have heat-seeking rocket launchers that allow players to tap their mouse button in time to the beat to keep the rocket on target even as the enemy tries to avoid the explosive.

The game will be free to play, but it unclear what sort of pricing options the game will have. The open beta for the game is expected to launch sometime later in 2014.