“Everything is new” in Homefront: The Revolution

Remember Homefront? …Yeah, I don’t really recall much of it either. Essentially Red Dawn: The Game in every manner possible that wouldn’t attract a team of lawyers from MGM Studios, Homefront was alright. It was a competent shooter, set in a world where enemy Korean forces had invaded the US of A. Much like Donald Trump’s election campaign platform then.

Naturally, America was having none of that nonsense, and you joined up with a band of guerrilla fighters to help fight back for Obamacare, crippling tertiary education costs and mandatory minimum sentences in prisons. USA! Fast forward a couple of years, and a sequel is on the way after having changed hands a couple of times.

THQ’s bankruptcy saw the game rights sold to Crytek for $544 000, which Crytek then later on sold to Deep Silver who tasked Dambuster Studios with creating Homefront: The Revolution. Fair enough. But the tight-fisted penny-pincher in me wonders why Deep Silver is even bothering. Why not just set up shop and make your own game with similar themes to Homefront?

According to Homefront: The Revolution narrative designer CJ Kershner, the sequel isn’t just continuing the story set in the first game. Its turned it around completely and turn it into a proper brand. And while it is a sequel, it’s also a brand new game in terms of everything. “Everything is new for Homefront: The Revolution,” senior narrative designer CJ Kershner said to MCV.

It’s a new team, new publisher, new style of gameplay, new backstory.

We’ve gone back to the core concept of Homefront – a fallen occupied America with a North Korean military presence and civilian resistance movement – and expanded it out by 360 degrees.

Dambuster is making its own unique mark on the name of Homefront, so anything that you remember or know about the first game: forget it now. It’s not a continuation of that story or that style of gameplay. There’s a reason we don’t call it Homefront 2.

So if Homefront: The Revolution is its own beast, why bother keeping the name at all? Well, you can’t beat good ol’ brand recognition, which Homefront apparently has. The first game shipped 2.6 million copies in 2011, which was rather good.

“There’s power in that core premise of being a guerrilla fighter and fighting in your own neighbourhoods against a technologically- and numerically-superior military force,” Kershner about the Homefront brand.

The premise is strong and the execution on the first game leveraged the story and the idea, but not the actual mechanics of what that would involve. By taking it open-world and setting it in Philadelphia, we can bring that guerrilla style of both the shock and awe to the games.

Players will experience chaotic, unscripted gun battles in the streets, plus the hearts and minds campaign of moving among civilians, sabotaging the infrastructure and encouraging them to make a stand against the occupation themselves.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION! Homefront: TheRevolution is skipping 2015, as its taking some extra time to polish itself up for a 2016 release.

Last Updated: November 16, 2015