Homefront The Revolution Ending

[Gano Richardson]

Its no secret that Homefront: The Revolution has suffered through straight up turmoil throughout its four-year development cycle. Its original publisher, THQ, shut down entirely, leading Crytek to acquire the rights to the franchise, though this ended shortly after Crytek suffered notable financial hardship, leading Deep Silver to acquire the rights in order to put Dambuster Studios at the helm. To be fair, all of the original Crytek UK team members were transferred over to Dambuster, though the sheer amount of chaos surrounding Homefront: The Revolution is not lessened by this fact. This particular development cycle was so rough that Dambuster Studio Head Hasit Zala actually led off the ending credits with a statement acknowledging the hardships. Things could have gone one of two ways for Homefront: The Revolution: success in the midst of tumult or the overall quality of the final product suffering immeasurably. Unfortunately for all involved, the latter turned out to be the case.

Players take the role of Ethan Brady, your standard everyday silent mid-thirties male protagonist, with the central goal of bringing down the oppressive North Korean regime, known as the KPA, that has taken over America. Brady is welcomed into a ragtag group of revolutionaries who have grown sick and tired of Philadelphia existing as a military state. You see, Homefront: The Revolution is an unabashed take on the lingering fear of what could happen if real-world America defaulted on its debt to China. In this universe, North Korea is the manufacturing giant that exports its technology and products to the rest of the world as well as the nation that other nations flock to in search of loans. We'll probably never know why Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver (and formerly Crytek UK) decided not to make Homefront: The Revolution a game about relations between America and China going awry, but the core idea is close enough to the real-world fears of the masses that it's easy to see what they're going for.

Homefront: The Revolution's greatest success is its core concept, as it's hard for anyone with any semblance of political knowledge to not at least consider the grim alternate future where the U.S. defaults on its debt. Add in the fact that North Korea built in a way to turn off every one of its manufactured electronics and weapons exported to America, and Homefront: The Revolution manages to capitalize on our fear of losing all connection with the technology we rely upon. Unfortunately for players, both the execution of this core concept and the central narrative itself are deeply flawed, so much so that a fascinating idea loses nearly all semblance of impact or emotional resonance.

Whether it's through a heavy reliance on fetch questing or a cast of characters that feels more archetypal than dynamic, Homefront: The Revolution's story doesn't feel as epic as its subtitle suggests that it should. All of the standard characters you'd expect from a military shooter are present: from the violent borderline psychopath to the hardened soldier all the way to the one guy attempting to take the moral high ground. If you were to pull any of the characters Brady encounters throughout the course of the central narrative and stick them into, say, Battlefield 3, they'd fit in seamlessly. Every performance is stiff and slightly awkward, making it tough to fully immerse yourself in the narrative Dambuster is attempting to tell. It's also worth noting that Homefront: The Revolution sports an all-time corny conclusion, so if you're looking for a story that does its central premise justice, you might want to look elsewhere.

Coming off of titles that manage to inject humanity into its characters like Uncharted 4, Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Homefront: The Revolution's characters feel like they're out of a game in 2006 as opposed to 2016. Granted, one could argue that because this is an open-world title that's focused more on taking territories and winning over the hearts and minds of the people (we'll dive into this more later), certain concessions can certainly be made when it comes to performances and writing. The big draw for Homefront: The Revolution, however, is the idea of getting in on the ground floor of a revolt against an oppressive power. Most gamers are going to be giving the Homefront franchise a second chance because its narrative has the potential to be powerful, but in the end it winds up being a fairly bland, by-the-numbers routine.

Though Homefront: The Revolution's core story leaves a great deal to be desired and its thematic execution feels like a missed opportunity, its gameplay is perhaps its most disappointing design element. While there is certainly a fair amount of medium-to-large gunfights in the main campaign, the vast majority of your experience is going to be spent in stealth. The thing is, outside of line-of-sight triggering and enemy vision cones, Homefront: The Revolution doesn't necessarily have any stealth mechanics that directly affect the moment-to-moment action. Stealth here means simply holstering your weapon (which does not appear to have a dedicated keybinding on PC), crouching and not shooting. The map of Philadelphia is divided up into Yellow and Red Zones with the former allowing Brady to blend in with the public and the latter involving shoot-on-sight law enforcement, so Homefront: The Revolution is more of a stealth game than a true first-person shooter. This would be far more engaging if the entire experience wasn't mechanically built around first-person shooting. There are a number of choices that feel indicative of Homefront: The Revolution's tumultuous shift between developers and publishers, and this dichotomy is front and center.

In terms of tightness, Homefront: The Revolution's shooting feels like it falls somewhere in the middle of Fallout 4 and Far Cry 3. While it isn't the most mechanically sound first-person shooter to come out this year (or in the past four days for that matter), there is certainly a satisfying punch to the proceedings when playing with a controller. As was mentioned in the previous paragraph, there's not a dedicated keybinding option at this time for holstering your weapon, which is absolutely critical for blending in in low-security Yellow Zones. This is indicative of the fact that this feels like the rare first-person shooter that feels better when using a controller instead of a keyboard and mouse. Sadly, despite its shooting falling on the right side of average, Homefront: The Revolution's combination of dreadful enemy AI and occasionally broken hit-boxes make every combat encounter feel like a slog. Enemies will often stand in one place, completely ignoring the need for cover, and it's painfully simple to lure an entire group of foes around a corner for easy kills. While actually connecting with an enemy does feel somewhat satisfying, we encountered a shocking number of times where perfectly aimed bullets simply didn't connect. In a month where both Doom and Overwatch are set to launch, it's blatantly clear that those looking for rock-solid first-person shooting should look elsewhere.

Easily the biggest difference between Homefront: The Revolution and the original Homefront is the former featuring an open world. Similar to the Far Cry franchise, Homefront: The Revolution features a map made up of distinct territories, each with a different Hearts and Minds meter that indicates your progress towards overthrowing the KPA in that area. Every side mission and small activity contributes a certain percentage towards a given Hearts and Minds rating, with the former giving you massive increases towards your end goal of capturing a central location and inciting a full-fledged takeover. While this system is actually pretty engaging at its core, the vast majority of the side missions in Homefront: The Revolution are focused around some of the clunkiest first-person platforming seen in years. The vast majority of the side missions in Yellow Zones involve wandering around the outside of a building, looking for the lone way to climb up, jumping from balcony to balcony and then activating some sort of button prompt. The Red Zone missions are not necessarily much better, with about a fifty-fifty split between small skirmishes and heading towards the objective and pressing a button. Without the presence of the Hearts and Minds meter, as well as spontaneous battles between the KPA and the revolutionists, there would be little to no reason to engage with the open world activities, causing this to feel like one of the more sterile examples of the checklist-style open world title that the AAA development industry has come to adore.

Homefront: The Revolution's single best mechanic is its weapon customization system, which fits right into its hope of simulating guerrilla warfare. Base weapons, such as your pistol or assault rifle, can be retrofitted with major attachments that convert them into entirely different gun types (such as a submachine gun for the pistol and a light machine gun for the assault rifle). On top of this, different scopes, muzzles and under-barrel attachments can be fitted to each weapon on the fly, allowing you to completely alter your strategy in the midst of combat with a few inputs. Despite the fact that some of the attachments feature painfully corny cosmetic details, namely one of the sights sporting a "U mad bro?" etching, the general look and feel of each gun fits in with the idea that the KPA essentially eliminated every modern weapon from America. Each weapon, with the exception of the rocket launcher, has accents like bungee cords, scratches and paint chips, which definitely strikes the "Hey, that's pretty cool," nerve. The one flaw with this weapon system is that after about half of the campaign, you'll likely have every bit of gear you'll want, making the entire system feel a bit pointless towards the end. Still, if the rest of Homefront: The Revolution was as cool as its weapon customization system, it'd be one hell of a game.

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