In-depth at E3: Homefront: The Revolution

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall,” Che Guevara once said.

If our hands-off Homefront: The Revolution demo was good enough to start with Che’s legendary quote, so too are our impressions of the game.

Set in Philadelphia years after the original Homefront, the United States of America is still under occupation by the KPA. Rather than a straight first-person shooter, The Revolution has you working behind the scenes to liberate not only patches of the city, but the whole of Philadelphia itself.

There was a massive Metro 2033 vibe about Homefront: The Revolution as we began the demo; admittedly, I haven’t played the original title, so it might very well match that as well. Philadelphia is an absolute (yet gorgeous looking) mess, with those inhabiting its now-slums showing nothing but contempt and disrespect for the lives they are forced to lead. They seem to take it out against Philly itself, with mountains of garbage piling up seemingly everywhere.

In the midst of the trash, several white spray-painted signs provide glimpses of hope. Our protagonist followed said signs to carry out his mission, passing impoverished Americans devoid of inner-light, and most certainly of any fight. One American who did, pissing in the middle of a market whilst whistling the American national anthem, was immediately tagged by a recon drone and shortly arrested and beaten by the KPA.

The world of Homefront: The Revolution is not a peaceful one.

Too late to help that poor soul, we came upon three Americans being arrested by a sole KPA officer. With his back turned, we approached the officer and swiftly broke his neck. Rather than a thanks from the captives we’d liberated, they look as if we… well, killed their jailer in front of the KPA itself. Despite a decided lack of gratitude from those we’d freed, we gained resistance points in the process and were one small step closer to liberating the area. As the captives ran, our protagonist picked up a brick and lobbed it at a nearby security camera to take it down.

It’s essential to stay in the shadows in The Revolution; if you take on the KPA head-on, you won’t survive. With that in mind, we followed the telltale spray-paint to a weapons cache. Just cause guns won’t help in a full-on assault, they certainly will if you integrate them with stealth. Moreover, the developer running the hands-off presentation said your primary objective should always be to fight for freedom, but in a way that lets you melt back into society in order to escape and fight again.

Setting out to release detained revolutionaries, we pulled up our mobile phone to reassess objectives and inspect a map. With our targets in mind, we then pulled up our assault rifle and, in a UI extremely similar to the same within a Crysis game, customised our weapon. You guessed it; a priority as we swapped out muzzles, scopes and barrels was stealth.

As we approached the detainment facility that our resistance fighters were being transferred to, technology came to the foreground. Our phone’s camera was used for recon purposes, IDing and tracking threats. We pulled out an RC car, tied into our phone, and attached a camera and IUD to it. Steering the car with our phone, we carefully weaved it through parked cars and the feet of KPA officers and to the front door of the facility. Calling it set off the IUD, and in the resulting panic, we charged, guns blazing and with the element of surprise.

I was right with Homefront: The Revolution up until that point; where the developers at Crytek were saying that stealth was key, the player seemed quite equipped to take on KPA baddies Call of Duty-style. Sure, we’d used stealth to wreak havoc before that point, but Homefront quickly turned into a standard FPS as we dispatched about seven to ten enemies. It immediately pulled me out of the picture the developers had painted for the bulk of the preview.

Homefront: The Revolution seems like it’s different, that’s for sure, and its promise as a living, breathing system has me intrigued for its release. Expect the game on Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4 sometime in 2015.