Since Homefront 2’s announcement in 2011, US oppression fantasy has come into vogue. No sooner has the White House been rebuilt than it’s been Down again. Los Angeles became embattled in that movie, Battle Los Angeles. And Call of Duty has topped its ‘tanks in Washington’ routine with an all-out American post-apocalypse. Will a regular old Korean intrusion on US soil hack it?
Crytek are certainly hoping so – they wrenched the Homefront IP from THQ’s death-grip last year, leaving a wad of cash in its place. And as these first two images reveal, production is still very much underway.
The “work-in-progress” screenshots come from a promotional pamphlet, haphazardly photographed by friends of VG247.
The foreground on the first resembles 1948 Italian parable of poverty and despair The Bicycle Thieves – but the skyscrapers in the back suggest a return to the cramped New York environs of Crysis 2.
The second features a watchtower with spiky hair and narrowed, omniscient eyes, like Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s in the Great Gatsby. On the upside, America’s new masters have contributed a new language to the country; on the downside, more barbed wire.
Homefront 2 was handed to Crytek after the implosion of Kaos Studios, developers of its lacklustre predecessor. It’s in development at Crytek’s UK studio, formerly known as Free Radical, the moniker under which they created the Timesplitters series. In the time since, they’ve been responsible for Crysis 3’s multiplayer modes. Did you spend any time with those?