Danger Zone! Sterling Archer Takes the Stage in Rock Band 4

Sterling Archer: secret agent turned private investigator turned… rock star? That’s right, this Thursday everyone’s favorite spy from “Archer,” the hit animated series on FXX, makes his long-awaited Rock Band debut as part of our March content update for Rock Band 4.

“That’s awesome! But why Archer?” you may ask. Well, I’ve got two words for you: “Danger Zone.”

When we received word that the Kenny Loggins mega-hit was coming to the Rock Band DLC Music Library, our thoughts immediately went to Archer. We’re big fans of the show. In fact, you could say that we like Archer as much as Archer likes, well, “Danger Zone”. So we reached out to the good folks at FXX and Floyd County Productions to see if they’d like to do something special for Rock Band and Archer fans and they jumped at the chance. An Archer cameo in Rock Band was happening.

For our art team, bringing Archer into Rock Band presented a unique challenge. The Archer TV show is cel-shaded, 2D animation – completely different from Rock Band’s signature 3D style. We experimented with a couple of different approaches for how Archer might look in Rock Band, including an Archer character in the traditional Rock Band style, but ultimately decided that the best approach was one that was true to the look and feel of the FXX series, so we created a custom cel-shader in Rock Band just for this character. The end result is an Archer that looks like he was pulled straight from TV and dropped on stage. We think he looks awesome – he almost pops off the screen!

Rock Band’s March update will be available tomorrow, March 16th. In addition to FXX’s Archer, there’s a bunch of other cool assets coming to Rock Band – like new punk outfits in the Rock Shop and a playable Normandy bass from Mass Effect – so make sure to check it out. Until then, here’s some footage of Archer singing his signature tune to hold you over.