Homefront Multiplayer Preview
-Jeffrey (CJ) Strike, aka Deadly Cyclone

Disclaimer: Everything in Homefront, and thus this preview, is subject to change. The Battle Points costs and points received may change between now and launch, some of the point costs, etc. had been accelerated in our demo, you have been warned.

An occupied America; a unified Korea; our towns and cities being torn apart by war.  These concepts are rarely thought about by the modern world, much less thought even possible by most, but are the themes for Homefront, KAOS Studios and THQ’s newest IP in the first person shooter genre. Recently, THQ held a press week in New York City on KAOS’ home turf to show off part of its 2011 line-up, concluding with Homefront. The main emphasis of the Homefront day was to debut a new game mode called Battle Commander and show off the multiplayer aspect of the game that pits American rebels against the Korean occupiers. Homefront has a lot to compete with considering recent releases of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam, as well as Crysis 2 and Killzone 3 which both debut in March alongside KAOS’ offering.  

The question is, does Homefront separate itself from the pack enough to be a worthwhile purchase in a sea of war-based first person shooters, or does it merely get lost in the shuffle?  Homefront day in NYC started with an appearance from Microsoft’s Major Nelson (Larry Hyrb). Major had made the trek from Redmond to announce that Homefront will receive DLC first on Xbox 360, and that the Xbox 360 would be getting an exclusive multiplayer map, “Suburbs.”

“Homefront is a first release IP. We are up against stiff competition in the genre. For Microsoft to put their full weight behind us as a priority title and to announce something like this, it is a huge win for KAOS Studios and THQ,” KAOS Community Manager Jeremy Greiner states, “On top of that, Microsoft’s audience is going to get a first taste of DLC. It is not out of the norm in this genre as well, and we are really thrilled about that relationship.”

This announcement is not to say that KAOS is only focusing on the Xbox 360 version of the game. KAOS had single player available at the event running on PS3 and PC as well. While I did not get hands-on with either, I did view some of the PC gameplay. Digital Extremes has done a great job thus far, the frame-rate was buttery smooth and the graphics looked fantastic.

When David Votypka, Creative Director and General Manager of KAOS, took the stage there was a palpable feeling of excitement in the air as the press had been told that a new part of the never-before played multiplayer would be unveiled, and it would be playable on the sixty-some Xbox 360 units set up around the show floor. The announcement came and “Battle Commander” was debuted. Battle Commander is a mode based on the revenge concept that drives teams to eliminate the opposing team’s best player(s) to unlock “Battle Points” rewards.

So before getting into the base multiplayer preview of Homefront, let’s take a look at what makes the Battle Commander (BC) mode unique, and unlike anything this genre has seen. The Battle Commander itself is not a human, but an AI that assigns certain star-based threat levels to all players in a BC match.

Take Battle Commander Team Deathmatch for example. The match begins as any other team deathmatch contest begins, by killing the other team, earning Battle Points and vice-versa. However, let’s say there is one annoying sniper in the back corner of the map camping in a tower and taking out a good portion of the other team. In Battle Commander mode, this sniper would begin to receive stars (think GTA “Wanted” level, with your opponents as the cops). After a few kills, the sniper gains one star, thus alerting a few people on the opposing team that this player has begun to become a threat by displaying a gold circle on the mini map, along with an icon on the HUD of the general area the sniper is in.

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