The Case

Despite the lukewarm reception of 2011’s Homefront, The Revolution has arrived after a long and troubled development cycle, which saw the sequel rights change hands no more than three times. The Revolution has sneaked on to consoles and PC platforms with little fanfare. Described as a “reimagining” of the original, does The Revolution strike a chord, resonating with fans of alternate-history America, or is the rebellion quashed before it even begins?

The Trial

While playing through the roughly 15-hour campaign of Homefront: The Revolution, I found myself asking, “Who was asking for a sequel to Homefront? And why?” For its flaws, it seemed to have a somewhat loyal fanbase that praised the multiplayer, and critics agreed. Would Dambuster/Crytek UK realize what went wrong in the original and be able to expand and improve upon it? Sadly, the answer to that question is a resounding “no.”

Discarding the story of the original, Homefront: The Revolution instead tells the tale of a tech-savvy North Korea, who conquers the world through the use of soft power, as opposed to military force, as in the original. The United States’ debt to Korea balloons, and eventually sets up total systemic collapse of the once-great superpower. The Korean People’s Army (KPA) moves into help support society, eventually taking over America by force, but not before disabling the American military’s tech.

It’s weird, and different, and surely it will rub fans of the original the wrong way, but for all its logical inconsistencies, it sets up the possibility of a dumb, fun, alt-history shooter with weird weapons and a chance to develop a world not commonly seen in media. Alternatively, if they wanted to go for The Man in the High Castle, or It Can’t Happen Here, there are excellent examples of crushing oppression to work with. Yet, the story fails to do that on almost every level, for a variety of reasons.

First, the characters. Angry and fierce resistance characters aren’t exactly uncommon in war games, but they’re balanced with some development. The Resistance forgets to develop its own obvious stereotypes, and it makes the entire game drag. Angry characters become unbearable, and fierce characters are grating, both of which is enhanced by the abysmal dialogue. Even the inevitable betrayal is more boring than tense, and when you confront the traitor later, nothing comes of it.

As a matter of fact, nothing really comes of the story at all. Even the character you play as, Ethan Brady, is bizarrely silent the entire way through, and little more than a movie camera with a gun. The story is told at you, and it feels as though you interact intermittently with designated “gameplay points.” You never feel as though you’re fighting against a technologically and numerically superior foe, and it makes the KPA ultimately just seem lame. More on why that is later, but regardless, the first rule of storytelling is show, don’t tell, and at this, Homefront fails miserably.

Strangely, for a game set in Philadelphia, near the American East Coast, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Multiple times, British English slang is used in place of American words, there’s an awful lot of coarse language, especially “fuck,” which is used in almost every sentence, and the voice actors sound more Canadian than American. I can’t totally fault a UK-based studio for getting some of the finer details of America right, but some of this feels lazy.

The ending, however, is an impressive culmination of everything that is awful with the story. Needless sacrifices, death-defying rescues, cheesy one-liners, even a heavily motion-blurred scene where you get to the final console and hit a switch couldn’t have been done more poorly. The game just sort of ends, as though the writing team forgot how to write a proper ending. Sure, the world you inhabit along the way is neat, and the different city districts have clearly been designed to have their own character, but the resistance fighters just smash and burn the city to the ground, and I have no sympathy for those who’ve died as a result.

Homefront never really commits to a theme, either. Are you a freedom fighter, or a psychotic terrorist? What about involving the civilians in your work? Is all this violence really worth it? These questions are briefly toyed with, but eventually discarded for…nothing, really. Ultimately, after the lukewarm ending, Homefront has said nothing of value.

Never mind about the failures of the story though, how does Homefront play? Gameplay is split between the Red Zones, bombed out areas of Philadelphia mostly inhabited by patrolling KPA units and resistance fighters, and Yellow Zones, beautiful civilian areas lived in by innocents and collaborators. The Yellow Zones are far more interesting, with platforming challenges, glimpses of daily life, KPA oppression, and much more lurking in alleyways and apartment complexes.

In Yellow Zones, your objective is to get a majority of the people to support the resistance activities, and this is achieved via a few ways: destroying spotlights, freeing prisoners, and…viciously stabbing and otherwise murdering KPA soldiers in broad daylight, then running for the hills. As for how that final act is supposed to convince innocent civilians into supporting the resistance, I’m not entirely sure myself, either. To top it off, once you fill up a progress meter, you press a button, and a canned, low-quality video of rioters smashing abandoned cars with baseball bats plays. It’s not rewarding in the slightest, and again, it definitely doesn’t feel like a revolution is happening.

In comparison, Red Zones play like a mediocre, brown Far Cry clone. You navigate to various monitoring outposts, unlock a section of the nearby map with which you can unlock various safe houses, before finally attacking and “securing” strongholds, “securing” meaning turning a gas valve until effectively a progress meter fills up and yet another canned animation plays. The numerous KPA guards then mysteriously vanish, and more rebels roll in. This whole sequence would be fine on its own, but since the Red Zones are where I ended up trudging through most of the game, these sequences become a slog.

Never mind about the failures of the story though, how does Homefront play? Gameplay is split between the Red Zones, bombed out areas of Philadelphia mostly inhabited by patrolling KPA units and resistance fighters, and Yellow Zones, beautiful civilian areas lived in by innocents and collaborators. The Yellow Zones are far more interesting, with platforming challenges, glimpses of daily life, KPA oppression, and much more lurking in alleyways and apartment complexes.

In Yellow Zones, your objective is to get a majority of the people to support the resistance activities, and this is achieved via a few ways: destroying spotlights, freeing prisoners, and…viciously stabbing and otherwise murdering KPA soldiers in broad daylight, then running for the hills. As for how that final act is supposed to convince innocent civilians into supporting the resistance, I’m not entirely sure myself, either. To top it off, once you fill up a progress meter, you press a button, and a canned, low-quality video of rioters smashing abandoned cars with baseball bats plays. It’s not rewarding in the slightest, and again, it definitely doesn’t feel like a revolution is happening.

In comparison, Red Zones play like a mediocre, brown Far Cry clone. You navigate to various monitoring outposts, unlock a section of the nearby map with which you can unlock various safe houses, before finally attacking and “securing” strongholds, “securing” meaning turning a gas valve until effectively a progress meter fills up and yet another canned animation plays. The numerous KPA guards then mysteriously vanish, and more rebels roll in. This whole sequence would be fine on its own, but since the Red Zones are where I ended up trudging through most of the game, these sequences become a slog.

The multiplayer itself is fine, to say the least. Creating resistance fighters, getting cosmetic gear unlocks and further weapon and skill upgrades all seem to be implemented really well for a co-op shooter, but after playing through the single player portion, I had little desire to run short missions that I’d already seen again and again, just to grind unlocks.

At least the game is a joy to look at. As mentioned previously, the Yellow Zones look great, both before and after the revolution swamps the districts, there’s a smattering of great rain effects throughout the game, and even the skyboxes have great depth. The sound design too is excellent, with distant gunfire echoing off city blocks, or rushing across the vast expanse of the Red Zones. The music too is fitting, if a bit droning. Far from the offensive covers found in the original Homefront, the music is at least intelligent here.

The Verdict

Combined, Homefront: The Revolution is an unfortunate case of the whole being less than its parts. It’s clear there were a number of unique ideas being bandied about during the development of this game, and there’s certainly shadows of those ideas in the full release, but its “me too” design fails to come together in any meaningful way. As a complete package, it struggles on many levels to deliver, chiefly, the story and gameplay. With time, many of the bugs should be fixed, and who knows, maybe the DLC offered post-release might improve on the story. From former Free Radical developers, Homefront: The Revolution is nothing less than a disappointing, if not outright terrible game.