Homefront, the underwhelming, short and badly-reviewed FPS that had big dreams but very little realisation of said fantastical notions, is getting a sequel. This isn’t amazing news, until you consider that the development studio that made the original has since closed, and that number two will be developed by none other than Crytek.
Yes, that Crytek – makers of Far Cry and Crysis and potentially a lot of future games with names like CryoStorage, the RPG about frozen tears, and CryMore, the online shooter. Crytek are famous for some of the best FPS titles in history, not just for their graphical brilliance (the mark of a truly awesome gaming PC is the ability to max out the graphics settings on Crysis, “can it run Crysis?” being the name of an achievement in the game’s sequel), but for their solid gameplay.
So what will drag you away from Modern Warfare 3, or Halo, or Words with Friends, or partypoker, or whatever you’re playing that’s likely to be a lot better than the bizarre mish-mash of ideas that was Homefront The First? Well, for starters you’ll be getting a game that’s likely at least around eight hours long, unlike the farical three or four you got the first time round. Weapons, physics and the overall game engine will likely benefit from CryEngine 3’s touch, and it’s not like the writing could get any worse, right?
It’ll certainly be interesting to see how it deals with the bizarre, pointless plot points of the original – it’ll either be a prequel, a reboot or a sequel that essentially says to the player “well, yeah, but then THIS happened, and we forgot about all of that silly stuff back in the past.” Either way, with the press and gaming communities buzzing at the news, it’s certainly one to watch.