gamescom 2015: Fight Smarter (and Harder) in Homefront: The Revolution

From moment one in our recent Homefront: The Revolution demo, we were outnumbered. As a guerrilla fighter for America’s resistance movement, we were tasked with taking out a convoy of Greater Korean Republic soldiers. And all too quickly, we learned that when you’re fighting an army, there are plenty of soldiers to back them up. So you have to be smarter, because you can’t be stronger.

In Homefront: The Revolution – set after the events of the first Homefront – you control Ethan Brady, a new recruit in the resistance. Here at Gamescom 2015, we got to play a mission, die halfway through, and then play it again because dammit, we’re not going to let America down like that!

In our mission, we were tasked with capturing strike points and taking a patrol that had pinned down some of our fellow rebels. In order to do so, we had to maneuver through enemy-occupied areas. Thankfully, a motorbike was on-hand to zip through the streets, largely avoiding enemies. The Revolution’s open world features numerous pathways to any objective, and the mission allows you to complete the strike points in any order.

And it’s not just about gunning down your enemies; you’ve got a couple factors working against you. The first: your limited ammo. Every shot needs to count, and if you run out of bullets, you’ll find yourself in a dicey situation real fast. Luckily, we had a few tools to help us out in the form of… well, explosives. Molotov cocktails took care of crowds, and our ordnance-strapped remote controlled cars were able to take out armored vehicles and groups of soldiers.

But the second threat to success is the most deadly: reinforcements. All around the open world, sentinel drones patrol the area. And if they spot you, reinforcements will show up. To add to that, huge zeppelins patrol from the sky with massive spotlights, so they can’t even be shot down like the drones. It’s not difficult at all to find yourself surrounded by enemies, simply because you got careless and took a wrong turn.

In order to combat these threats, you’ve got to utilize the environment – zipping between buildings, fleeing when necessary, and using surprise to your advantage. Homefront: The Revolution truly mimics guerrilla tactics in its gameplay, in a way that we’ve never seen in a game before. It feels much different than other first person shooters; it’s more like a cat-and-mouse game where the main character is vulnerable… and very mortal.

Homefront: The Revolution is expanding on what made the previous game so good, and this Gamescom demo is an immensely promising look into the harrowing, war-torn future of our country. Homefront: The Revolution will hit Xbox One and Windows PC in 2016.