[Review] Homefront

Homefront is a modern military first-person shooter developed by Kaos Studios and published by THQ (the old one) in March 2011.

/// Premise

The year is 2027. The world has suffered a decade-long energy crisis, and economies have crumbled. Reduced to a mere shadow of the superpower it once was, the United States became the target of a North Korean takeover. American malls, suburbs, and city streets are now battlegrounds as the civilian resistance fights for freedom.

(Side note) THQ's marketing said the script was written by John Milius (of Apocalypse Now), a blatant lie. In a report by Gamasutra later corroborated by Kotaku, former Kaos employees confirm Milius never wrote a single word of the script, affirming C.J. Kershner is the true writer, and that Milius's role was nothing more than a consultant.

/// Overview

Preamble: The COD comparisons.

It is inevitable to talk about Homefront without mentioning the Call of Duty games. Regardless of the series current quality, at the time COD was in its golden age with Modern Warfare 2 overwhelmingly positive reception. THQ was banking on Homefront to become a future (and hopefully just as lucrative) competitor.

You just have to play for a few minutes to see how much it tries to emulate that series core identity, particularly the missions Wolverines! and Exodus from MW2, the ones centered in the concept of an America under siege.

That's fine. But the similarities go way beyond just firefights in American suburbs. The look of the interface, objective markers, the font used, the attempt at shocking scenes, sniper stealth segments, the hitmakers, the slow-motion scripted sequences. Hell, even the concept of issuing orders to an overpowered army vehicle using a "Goliath" callsign has been directly lifted from that game.

Despite the above, I honestly dislike the "this is a ripoff" arguments. If Homefront was a true-to-the-word ripoff, it would have been a low-quality asset flip named Duty Calls Modern Warfighter.

Clearly, Kaos took a lot of mechanical and aesthetic elements from Modern Warfare 2 in the pursuit to become a competitor. Using what's already proven appealing to your target demographic is just a smart marketing strategy. But that strategy is a double-edged sword.

If you can refine and elevate the aspects taken to a better form, then your game will be seen as a natural improvement on the formula. Fail to do it, and the final product ends up looking like an inferior imitation of a more successful title. This is what happens to Homefront.

Gameplay

The gameplay loop is exhaustingly repetitive. ⚪ FOLLOW is what you will see on-screen for most of the game. And it goes more or less like this:

Watch heavily scripted sequence.

⚪ FOLLOW NPC.

Play shooting gallery wack-a-mole with some enemy soldiers.

⚪ FOLLOW NPC.

Watch heavily scripted sequence.

Play shooting gallery wack-a-mole with some enemy soldiers.

Binoculars to use the AI vehicle targetting.

Eliminate RPG guy to protect the AI vehicle.

Occasional turret sequence.

⚪ FOLLOW NPC.

Watch heavily scripted sequence.

End mission.

Repeat.

The game is 7 levels long. It can be finished in under 4 hours, but it feels way longer than that thanks to its formulaic approach to mission objectives. Having a formula isn't bad, all games do, but when you can feel it this clearly you notice the repetition much faster.

The level design is rigid, keeping the player on a short leash at all times. Linearity is pretty standard for the average modern FPS. But other games at least feature a gameplay variety in maps that allow some degree of choice when carving a route through the enemy. For example, climbing a ladder on the side of the building to get high ground, or maybe go inside the building, maybe stay on the street. You know, basic level design. But even that expected variety is largely absent here.

And as the cherry on top of this bitter cake, everyone's favorite: Real-life brand advertisement.

White Castle fast-food, Nos energy drinks, Hooters, TigerDirect store, and probably more that I missed.

Out of the seven, only the last three missions are decently enjoyable and evenly paced. Mission 5: Heartland focuses on a doom prepper camp and how an invasion was their wet dream come true. Mission 6: Overwatch breaks the monotony by letting the player fly a helicopter, that was alright. And lastly Mission 7: Goldengate is a shootout on the San Francisco bridge, that was ok.

 

Guns

The weapon lineup is weak, the models themselves are neat but there are about 9-10 largely interchangeable rifles, save for one or two that had some more humph to it. Not much diversity for other categories either, oddly enough there's only one pistol and shotgun type in the game.

The gunplay isn't all that satisfying and something about the way recoil was handled for some guns feels off. Ammunition is capped at measly 3 magazines (90 bullets) for rifles. Running low on ammo all the time sounds good on paper for the "scavenging resistance" story angle, but it just doesn't work for the game flow.

/// Story

It has an interesting premise. The scenario of the USA getting attacked, rather than being the invader is a neat concept that could have been a nice respite from the usual US military circle jerk. But ultimately Homefront still falls for the same old trappings, It's just coated in a guerrilla fighter flavor.

The best way I can quickly define the narrative is as some type of Second Amendment fan fiction.

"Oh no, North Korea has nuked the US, we are being invaded and are [finally] being oppressed, we civilians must take arms and defend The American Way of Life™️ with our own hands no matter the cost!!!"

Sorry, but fuck off. The premise of US soil as a battleground and a resistance making use of guerrilla warfare is interesting as hell, but the way it's executed here is as shallow as it gets, it feels like it was written by a teenager.

At points, it tries to go for mature moments of shock. But the tonal whiplash in this game is gigantic.

It's tone-deaf and tasteless.

"Oh wow, look, a ditch filled with decomposing bodies, and you have to hide in it, the horror! Anyway, time for a sick action sequence.

Oh no, we used white phosphorus! What have we done! The horrors of war! Now go back to shooting waves of faceless soldiers, your guilt-free dopamine hit is waiting!"

The idea that 4 people living in a small town turned labor camp will hold on to military-grade hardware (that wasn't confiscated for whatever reason) and make a big stand against an entire army is stupid. If it was just a simple action game, it would be passable, but with how serious Homefront tries to be? No, just no.

The already weak storyline then ends abruptly, with no resolution or pay-off for the protagonist or side characters, not like they had any motivation outside of "save America" in the first place. Hell, there's not even a conclusion to the primary drive of the game, the war. There's not even some sequel bait. It just ends.

/// Aftermath

Excluding the clumsy campaign, the game's Multiplayer mode developed by studio Digital Extremes (which worked on Unreal Tournament) was considered the better part of the game, praised for its large-scale combat. However, its success was shortly overshadowed by Battlefield 3's release later that same year.

In March 2011, after Homefront's release, THQ suffered a 26% drop in its stock price. The large drop was speculated to be a result of Homefront's less than expected reception. On June 13, 2011, THQ announced the closure of Kaos Studios. The Homefront team was folded into THQ Montreal. After THQ declared bankruptcy in December 2012, by January 2013 the Montreal studio of ~170 employees was acquired by Ubisoft, and the Homefront IP was sold off to Crytek for 544,218 USD.

In 2014 after development in a Homefront reboot was well underway at Crytek, but a series of internal issues resulted in the resale of the IP to Koch Media, landing the project in the lap of Dambuster Studios. After delaying the game into 2016, the full reboot in the form of Homefront: The Revolution would be released to no better reception than its predecessor. Arguably worse.

/// Conclusion

Homefront works best when it stops pretending it's some kind of gritty war drama and fully commits to being the schlocky shooting gallery it wants to be. Sadly out of seven missions, only three are decent. But not enjoyable enough to wade through the first five.

If you are craving that 7th gen war schlock, there are plenty of decent alternatives to go through first. It's not godawful, but not worth playing it either. Definitely one of the blandest shooters of that generation. If given more time to refine their craft, maybe Kaos could have pulled off a good franchise in the long run, but that door of opportunity closed the moment THQ's doors did.