RPS Feature Frontin'
The hot potato of gaming, tossed from publisher to publisher, is somehow complete. Homefront: The Revolution [official site] is out today in the US, and then anachronistically, for no bloody sodding reason, delayed for Europe until Friday. (Is there still a shop that even sells PC games?) In development for five long years, can it possibly hold together? The answer for this open-world shooter is an interesting one.
Face-shooting Red Dawn fanfic Homefront: The Revolution [official site] has had a funny old time. After shutting down Homefront creator Kaos Studios, publishers THQ turned to their Montreal studio for the sequel, then looked to Crytek UK as THQ fell apart. Crytek bought the game and rights in the THQ fire sale and revealed the game at E3 2014. Less than two months later, suffering their own financial problems, Crytek sold Homefront to Deep Silver and shifted the dev team over. Strange times.
Now Homefront: The Revolution has resurfaced at Gamescom, with a new cinematic trailer showing how happy everyone in Philadelphia is living under Korean rule:
RPS Feature The Philadelphia Experiment
I’m not sure how a Homefront sequel that I didn’t really care about became a Crysis game that I really want to play, but that’s what I saw the other day. Homefront: The Revolution is Crysis. Hilariously Crysis. So very very Crysis. And yet it’s a Crysis game that Crytek haven’t even managed to make, despite having all the component parts.
Now they are, and it’s a Homefront game. I am confused.
The sequel to Homefront that you probably weren’t eagerly anticipating has been announced in the form of a trailer that you can see below. There’s no in-game footage but we sent roving reporter Craig ‘Craig Pearson’ Pearson to get some first-hand impressions and he managed to enage my interest with one phrase: “It’s basically a sandbox City 17.” Maybe eager anticipation should begin right about now? We’ll have a full feature tomorrow with more on that but for now I’m left with a trailer that shows terrorists freedom fighters striking back at an oppressive military occupation. Drones, explosions and urban gunfights below the break.
Having closed down Homefront developers, Kaos Studios, earlier this year, THQ have had to look elsewhere to create a sequel for the massively disappointing shooter. They seem to be going straight to the top. It has just been announced that the publishers are partnering with Crysis creators, Crytek, for the project. The company, currently rumoured to be working on Timesplitters 4, and certainly developing a 360 exclusive, Ryse, for Microsoft, is certainly diverging away from its previous EA-only development. And with multiple studios and presumably Crysis 3 a good way off, it makes sense for them to be picking up work like this.
I KEEP saying I’ll do this regularly, but something about numbered lists makes me curl into a tiny ball and weep for mother. Anyway, let’s do it this week and maybe I’ll be a better boy again next week. Here’s the top ten best-selling released PC games on Steam last week, in comparison to the top 10 at UK retail. As always, there are some verrrry interesting variations, which have much to say about both Steam and retail’s own peccadilloes…
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This seems like some pretty bloody odd timing, but perhaps it’s THQ taking advantage of a temporary lull in glossy manshoots and seeing if there’s room to sell a few more copies of their noisy March release Homefront, which was their own take on CoDiness. The game, made by now-shuttered NYC developer Kaos, sold pretty well but received what could generously be described as a mixed reaction. Did it deserve praise, sneering or the all-too-rarely traversed middleground? Now you can decide by having a go at the newly-released PC demo, now available via Steam. Power-up the independent thought nodes: where you’re going, you don’t need us.
If, following that, you feel this tale of North Koreans invading America and the resulting resistance is for you, the download version of the game is now selling for half-price until June 27: that’s £14.99 in Britisher-coins. Also, here’s John’s verdict on it.
