Rock Band 4 wants players to ‘color outside the lines’

Improvisational vocals and more

IGN has the hot scoop on Rock Band 4 these days, having taken a trip to the Harmonix office to cover the upcoming music game. While it has exclusive gameplay footage going up later this week, the site posted some details yesterday that may get plastic instrument fans excited.

For starters, Rock Band 4 uses a new engine that runs at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. The more impactful details revolve around the idea of personal expression, or “color[ing] outside the lines,” as Product Manager Daniel Sussman describes.

To start off a song, the drummer can count the band in with hits on the green tom. During drum fills, a randomly chosen fill from a set will display instead of the “go nuts” bars from the past. Vocals will be afforded much more freedom than in past games, with scoring based on following the given melody or for improvising a new one in tune.

One last bit sounds interesting, but details are scant. The campaign mode is described as a Rock Band role-playing game. Perhaps we’ll get a better picture of this when we see the first gameplay footage on Friday.

Rock Band 4 May Be The Last Music Game You’ll Ever Need – IGN First [IGN]