
"A solidly crafted multiplayer component is the only thing that redeems Homefront's brief, nearly tensionless campaign."

Homefront is a first-person shooter that takes place in a United States ravaged by war against the North Koreans. North Korea, led by Kim-Jong-Il's son, has taken over the United States and it is up to freedom fighters to take it back. The game aims to make players think about what it would be like to have the United States invaded by North Korea. Throughout the campaign players will be allowed to use near-future weapons such as the Goliath rocket launcher. While Kaos Studios (Company) handled the console versions of Homefront, Digital Extremes (Company) developed the PC (Platform) port.
By the year 2027, when the game starts, North Korea has built up an empire after a unification with South Korea. Along with South Korea (Location), other Asian countries such as Japan enter the federation led by Kim-Jong-Il's son. The federation makes a partial occupation of the United States in key cities, such as San Francisco (Location). The game starts two years after this with freedom fighters attempting to fight back against the occupation.
The game opens up with a montage leading up to present day events. Using stock footage and CG, this cutscene shows that following Kim Jong-un's rise to power, North Korea has taken over most of Asia, getting more and more powerful while the US crumble due to some unfortunate circumstances (financial crisis, swine flu, famines, rise of communism to name a few). North Korea decides to launch an EMP, crippling the US's power grid, taking the west coast and most of mid-western America.
The game starts out in a small town in Colorado. Players control Robert Jacobs (Character), a pilot who has lost everything. The North Korean army has asked to recruit him but because he never answered the call, he's deported. During his deportation however, a local resistance force intervenes (Rianna (Character) and Connor) and bring him to their hideout called Oasis where they meet with resistance's chief, Boone.
The resistance has heard a fuel convoy is going to make its way through the area. They plan to hijack the convoy and bring it to the struggling American troops outside of San Francisco. To get to the convoy, they plan to steal beacons that they will stick onto the trucks and then follow the trucks by helicopter before finally hijacking them.
Connor, Rianna and Jacobs infiltrate a local work camp to get the beacons, where they are betrayed by their inside man. They manage to grab the beacons but stumble across a baseball field where the Koreans are dumping American bodies into a ditch. Connor loses it and the group is forced to kill everyone there. However, they don't manage to escape before the reinforcements arrive and are forced to hide with the bodies in the ditch.
Despite their close call, the team makes it back to base and together they go to a super market where the convoy is refueling. They stick the beacons onto the convoys and escape. Upon making it back to Oasis, they find in horror that it has been destroyed with Boone hung on a swing set, brutally murdered. Despite this setback, Connor decides to stick to the plan. They escape by blowing up the city's front gate and go into the unoccupied hinterland filled with violent hicks who brutally slaughter any North Korean they come across. The resistance meets up with their contact who attempts to molest Rianna at which point the group opens fire resulting in a violent firefight between Americans.
After killing most of the survivalists, the team makes it to the helicopter and catch up to the convoy, which they hijack. From Fresno, they head to the Golden Gate Bridge, to one of the last remaining US army bases. The fuel is much appreciated as it gets US jets in the air and together, US troops manage to take back the Golden Gate bridge despite Connor sacrificing himself for a missile strike. The game ends with the words "Home Is Where The War Is" and the credits flash on the screen.
The Multiplayer is set during the american occupation after an EMP and cyber attack the remnants of the US military are trying to fight back the Korean invasion, being set in America the locales are based off of familiar scenery such as suburban culdesacs, apartment stores and a highway interchange. The game features dedicated servers for all platforms and support up to 32 players on consoles, 64 players on PC.
Like Kaos' first game Frontlines: Fuel of War, Homefront's multiplayer features large scale warfare with vehicles. Homefront's mutiplayer uses a battle points system, where taking objectives and getting kills gives the player points. Some of the items that players can purchase vary, from weapons and vehicles including helicopters, tanks and drones.
Battle points let players buy what they want when they want, if players are fighting a helicopter and they need a rocket launcher, they can can buy one in the middle the fight.
There are multiple perks that can be equipped during multiplayer in the class customization menu. Each perk costs a certain amount of coin to equip: 1 coin for level 1 perks, 2 coins for level 2 perks and 3 coins for level 3 perks. Coins are handed out once players reach a certain milestone in the level progression; players can only have 3 perks equipped at a time.
| Level | Perk | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 (lv 1) | Drone Be Gone! | Faster Drone Speed |
| Level 1 (lv 1) | Tactical Reload | Faster Reload Speed |
| Level 1 (lv1) | Quick Draw | Quicker Speed to aiming down Sights |
| Level 8 (lv1) | My Buddy | Longer Drone Battery Duration |
| Level 23 (lv 1) | Ghost | Hidden from UAV Sweeps |
| Level 34 (lv 1) | Crater-to-Order | Larger drone explosion on death |
| Level | Perk | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 (lv 2) | Thick Skin | Increased drone health |
| Level 1 (lv 2) | Now That's a Knife | Increased melee damage with quicker recovery |
| Level 1 (lv 2) | Penny Pincher | Equipped special weapons cost less |
| Level 18 (lv 2) | Grave Robber | Pick up ammo dropped by dead soldiers |
| Level 26 (lv 2) | Steady Aim | Less recoil while aiming down the sights |
| Level 38 (lv 2) | Utility Belt | Extra special grenade |
| Level 42 (lv 2) | Blastwave | Larger blast radius for explosives |
| Level 47 (lv 2) | Quick Healer | Faster health regeneration |
| Level | Perk | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 (lv 3) | Straight from the Hip | Reduced weapon deviation when shooting from the hip |
| Level 1 (lv 3) | Fist Full | Extra Grenades |
| Level 13 (lv 3) | Grizzled | Increased experience gain |
| Level 30 (lv 3) | Boomer | Increased explosive damage |
Battle Points is a new system developed by KAOS that works as an in-match currency system allowing players to purchase items on the fly. From the player customization screen users can select two items to place into Battle Points slots (mapped to the up and down d-pad functions). Items to purchase with Battle Points include rocket launchers, flak jackets, remote controlled drones (assault helicopter drone, recon drone, tank drone), and airstrikes. The Battle Points system also is the only way to get vehicles in a multiplayer match. From the spawn screen, players can use any Battle Points they have accrued from taking objectives or getting kills to purchase any of the vehicles that have been unlocked (based on the player's rank).
Battle Commander is a game mode that adds another layer of depth to a typical Ground Control or Team Deathmatch battle. The Battle Commander is an A.I. that watches over each match (one per team) and based on how other players on the enemy team are doing assigns a star ranking to them. The star system goes up to 5 stars and is fairly simple. As a person starts accruing more and more kills, point captures, drone spots, etc. the opposing Battle Commander will begin to give them stars. At one star the enemy Battle Commander will alert a few people on the opposing team that this player has begun to become a threat and will offer those players a Battle Points reward to kill the person along with showing his/her general location on the map. As the player's number of stars increase, so do the number of enemies that know their whereabouts; at five stars the whole team knows the player's exact location. The player gaining the stars gets perk bonuses as he accrues more, however. Things like extra armor and ammo will help that player take on the more and more opposing players trying to kill him. Every player in the match can get any amount of stars at any time, so it is not just one specific player per team.
Homefront's entire soundtrack is composed by Matthew Harwood (Person) and Scott Cresswell contributed to the first track ("Stand Your Ground"). The music is primarily orchestra mixed with electronic elements and Asian percussion instruments like erhu and pipa.
| Track # | Title |
|---|---|
1 |
Stand Your Ground |
2 |
Main Theme |
3 |
Lobby |
4 |
Golden Gate |
5 |
Oasis |
6 |
Cul De Sac |
7 |
Escape |
8 |
Goliath |
9 |
Good By Boone |
10 |
The Drop Off |
11 |
Parking Lot Fight |
12 |
Outpost |
13 |
Airliner |
14 |
Back Yards |
15 |
Bridge Assault |
16 |
Abandon Streets |
17 |
Gas Station |
18 |
Suburbs |
19 |
On Fire |
20 |
Burnt Oasis |
21 |
Back Yard Battle |
22 |
Warehouse |
23 |
Outsiders |
24 |
Under The Bridge |
25 |
Take The Shot |
26 |
Little Bird Approach |
27 |
Bus Ride |
28 |
No Compromise |
29 |
Front Gate |
30 |
This Is Our Home |
31 |
Temperance |
32 |
Connor Morgan |
33 |
Crate City |
34 |
Familiar Has Become Alien |
Digital Extremes (in cooperation with KAOS) has implemented a few extra features for the PC crowd that will not necessarily all appear on console versions of the game, some of these include:
