The sinking of a South Korean naval ship towards the end of March this year is currently one of the most trepidatious and worrying build ups to conflict the world has seen in the past few decades. This is because it's alleged the ship was struck by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine.

Since the sinking, the North has denied any involvement, despite South Korea's insistence they have evidence to the contrary, and as a result have asked the UN to punish their reclusive northern neighbour.

This action has lead to nothing but resentment from North Korea who, only a few days ago, warned there'd be dire consequences if the UN followed through in dragging them before the security council to answer for their alleged actions.

Let's fast forward about 17 years.



A unified Korea is occupying the US; splitting the country in two through chemical warfare. They've contaminated the Mississippi river with radiated iodines, ostensibly cutting the East from the West, making it near on impossible for anyone to totally unite and fight back. Communication in the country has been severed ever since the unified Korea detonated an EMP during their Trojan Horse invasion of 2025 where an economically crippled US agreed to accept a cargo ship filled with US nationals. The cargo ship, however, was not filled with US ex-pats, but rather a Korean invasion force, who immediately take control of the country – spreading their power with the largest army the world has known, more advanced weapons and a thirst for revenge. It takes just two years to cripple and dominate the US.

This is the setting for THQ and Kaos Studios' Homefront. A vision described to us by Kim Tae, a former CIA agent who is very astute in Korean affairs (why, he can't tell us or he might have to kill us), and advisor to Kaos Studios for Homefront.

While this scenario might sound unlikely, Kim cites other situations in history that may have been pretexted with similar dismissal. Chief among these is Hitler coming to power in an impoverished Germany, only to conquer continental Europe within nine years. He also uses Genghis Khan, Alexander and more as footnotes in history of unlikely and improbable events of power and invasion, conquer and control.

To further his point, Kim takes us backward through their envisioned timeline. From 2027 – the year the game is set – to the current, 2010. In fact, the gameplay demo we see is prefaced with a back-story marker of sorts, featuring snippets of Korea's rise to unification and power, and it begins with video footage of Hilary Clinton condemning the sinking of the South Korean naval ship by the North, which again happened only two months ago.



Through his trek back in time, Kim cites moments in 'history' that have helped Korea reach their end-point. The US' economy collapsing once again, the death of Kim Jong Il and his son taking over; offering peace and unification to not only the Koreas, but also all of South East Asia. Japan eventually becomes part of the super-power, while the US suffers millions of deaths from a new and uncontrollable flu strain. The epidemic, and a crumbling economy forces the US to officially withdraw from the Middle East (which leaves a power vacuum for Russia to fill, thus taking them out of this conflict equation), and cut spending on their military program, leaving their defense force scattered and less powerful. Weapons and equipment are out of commission, while the growing Korea engulfs Japan's nuclear stockpile and ICBM technology.

When we saw the game at E3 last year, we were blown away. Visually, dramatically and action-wise, Homefront was an instant winner. Today we're seeing an extended demo of the game in action, which still features a portion of our original exposure to the game from 2009, but also a new snippet of gameplay.

"We're really focusing on the gameplay pillar of 'familiar becomes alien'," explains Lead Single-Player Designer, Criss Cross. "And what does that mean for the mechanics? You know we're not going to have a Gravity Gun, but you saw the M4 with the hollow sight, you know, it had a strap on it – that's the familiar becomes alien, both in that it's actually something I found, and it's now a dirty looking gun right, but now it sells the world – this world that is instantly familiar, but at the same time very alien."



Watching the demo, I couldn't help but think of the likes of Fallout 3. The familiarity aspect of the game; these urban settings, hollowed out shopping centres, decimated suburban homes, abandoned cars – this is not simply a game set in the future on US soil, it's a taste of pre-history, an unnerving and oft scary vision of a somewhat likely situation we should all be wary of. Thats not t say the guys at Kaos are attempting preach some kind of 'what if' situation, it's definitely poignant, but it's also fiction, and a videogame to boot.

"Well we want to throw out [to the player] as much as we can," says Kaos Studios head and lead designer, Dave Votypka of the context and back-story's complexity. "One of the biggest selling points of this game is the unique setting, and so the back-story is there to set up how this all happened, but it's only really there to give you recourse – as a result of what happened, this is going to be a really interesting world to explore. So the world is really a character on its own, and we really want you to explore that; the woman and children side of it – how did they get caught up in all of this, how did everything effect them? It's not just about pure combat, it's about the larger humanity side of things."

Our demo proves this somewhat. There's plenty of background stuff going on to sell the human side of the game. Walking through a resistance compound we see kids playing, old people gardening, inter-personal conflict – the works. We also see unlikely soldiers, human error, death and carnage, moral integrity and pure rage. Its a full gamut of emotion charged into a single narrative, and it's close enough to home we can all relate. Though that does raise a single question from the other side of the equator – where does Australia fit into all of this if we're part of South East Asia?

"So the way you guys fit into the back-story for all of this is right now (game present, 2027) Australia is accepting escapees and the foreign nationals who are fleeing places like Japan and Korea and other Asia-Pacific countries," Dave explains. "So the tidbit hint for the future is that having that greater created federation is going to create some tension in that region so..."

And yes, he did just leave us hanging, but at least we exist in this greater turmoil, and here's hoping there's some serious ANZAC representation when the final game ships.



Speaking of which, the game is looking very nice. The demo showed off both a day and night scenario, each of which worked well in selling the life of the game-world. It's running off a heavily modified and tweaked Unreal game-engine, with some very cool effects in place to sell the future aspect. A sulfur flare, for example, shot at night against a Korean patrol sees the enemy screaming, falling and running around in pain. Their bodies enduring the worst possible pain as they're engulfed in sulfuric flame. Here the player has the option of shooting them to put them out of their misery, or letting them suffer. It's but one example of the moral line injected throughout, and a very good hint at the human element so sorely lacking in games of this nature.

There was plenty of place-holder stuff though, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say I hope they clean up their death animations, offer varying hit-points and more solid collision detection (though the guy playing the demo live for us wasn't the best shot, so that might have been it). It's looking fantastic though, I just can't wait to see it up close and more personal.

Bloom lighting is great and particles float about the player-space. There's a lot of detail in the immediate game-world; a lot of thought has gone into peripheral devices designed to sell the 'familiar becomes alien' pillar, offering it up as even more than a simple gameplay device – it's a narrative on its own and helps reiterate another facet the team have injected dubbed 'why we fight'.

"The uniqueness really comes in what the core fantasy is," says Lead Level Designer, Rex Dickson of what makes Homefront stand out in the FPS crowd. "So it's not a professional soldier game, you're not going to hear "Oscar Mike" in this game at all. It's really abut the civilian side, how the American civilian might be affected by a foreign occupation, and what happens to civilians when they're forced to fight when they're not professional combatants – that was really the goal we set out to achieve and you can get that raw combat experience in a handful of other games, but we believe our core fantasy is what sets us apart, especially in the shooter space."



There's been no mention so far of anything regarding multiplayer, but I did gleam from the guys on-hand that we'd be seeing a proper dedicated server model, which was good news, but for a team whose history lies predominantly in the multiplayer space, what they were pushing here is their focus on the single-player experience, and so far, we're not disappointed. It's a crowded genre, and one that needs a strong narrative to really thoroughly compete, but the core foundation of their story at-hand here is not only solid, it's close to home, troubling and utterly engaging as a result. From the stellar audio, to the game's shocking and unpredictable combat, Homefront is everything single-player junkies should be looking for in a game – emotion, drama, action, turmoil, excitement and most important of all, fun.

Stay tuned to AusGamers for more as it becomes available.