Crytek making Homefront sequel

Though Homefront's creator, Kaos Studios, has shut down, the franchise lives on. THQ announced today that Crysis developer Crytek will be making the sequel, headed to PC and consoles in 2014.

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The closure of Homefront developer Kaos Studios earlier this year left the future of the near-future shooter franchise in question, but THQ announced today that a sequel's on the way. Surprisingly, it'll be made by Crysis creator Crytek.

THQ coyly avoids saying much about the game, but in 2010 it spoke of plans for a Homefront: London at some point in the series. Whatever this sequel turns out to be, it's headed to PC and consoles in 2014.

"Selecting Crytek to take Homefront forward underscores our strategy of working with the industry's best talent," THQ core games EVP Danny Bilson said in the announcement. "With Crytek's industry leading technology and legendary experience in the FPS genre, we're supremely confident that the next Homefront will deliver that AAA-quality experience that players demand."

Crytek is also unsurprisingly enthusiastic, with CEO Cevat Yerli saying, "We see Homefront as a really strong universe that has a lot of potential and that has been expertly created and marketed by THQ."

"We believe that bringing our level of quality, creativity and production values to the next Homefront title creates an opportunity for both THQ and Crytek to deliver a truly blockbuster game. It's really important to us that THQ has the faith in giving us a lot of creative freedom over one of its most important properties to allow us to bring the Homefront world to life in a new and innovative way."

Evidently, THQ's new strategy of focusing on "high-quality owned IP with broad appeal" includes using external studios to work on its own properties. That recent "strategic realignment" saw THQ close another two of its internal studios lay off around 200 people as it moved away from making licensed and kids' games.

The original Homefront launched to a lukewarm critical reception in March, but, according to THQ estimates, sold one million units in its first ten days. Today's announcement described Homefront as "a commercial success for THQ."

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 20, 2011 5:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Crytek making Homefront sequel.

    Though Homefront's creator, Kaos Studios, has shut down, the franchise lives on. THQ announced today that Crysis developer Crytek will be making the sequel, headed to PC and consoles in 2014.

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      September 20, 2011 5:46 AM

      A commercial success in the same way Spiderman 3 was. :/

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        September 20, 2011 5:51 AM

        Well, considering how Homefront turned out...There's nowhere to go but up.

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      September 20, 2011 5:50 AM

      [deleted]

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        September 20, 2011 5:54 AM

        except that a bulletstorm sequel would actually be fun :(

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          September 20, 2011 5:55 AM

          Thats true.

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          September 20, 2011 7:05 AM

          but the linked post was about Homefront

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            September 20, 2011 7:17 AM

            I saw bulletstorm up top and got excited, then I re-read it and saw homefront, and got unexcited, then I read bulletstorm again and I got excited, again.

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        September 20, 2011 8:20 AM

        What crazy timing for them to announce this. Hopefully the 2nd one is longer as both Crysis 1 and 2 were pretty decent length games.

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      September 20, 2011 5:53 AM

      O_o

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      September 20, 2011 5:54 AM

      You mean made BY Crysis creator Crytek?

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        September 20, 2011 5:54 AM

        Jerk, you changed the post right as I was trying to be a grammar police :(

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      September 20, 2011 5:56 AM

      The most uninteresting game being made by the most uninteresting developers.

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        September 20, 2011 6:04 AM

        [deleted]

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        September 20, 2011 6:19 AM

        Don't you go dissing Far Cry and Crysis. Best FPSs ever.

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          September 20, 2011 6:30 AM

          Love Far Cry, hated Crysis and its sequels.

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            September 20, 2011 6:34 AM

            Considered taking Crysis for a new spin? It has so great gameplay.

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              September 20, 2011 6:45 AM

              Naa, I had my fill. Unless they radically change up their writing I'm done with anything from Crytek.

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                September 20, 2011 7:25 AM

                Wait, are you saying you thought Far Cry had better writing than Crysis?

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                  September 20, 2011 7:29 AM

                  Yes. not greatly so but at least it was entertaining.

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                    September 20, 2011 7:31 AM

                    That is a very strange opinion.

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                      September 20, 2011 9:00 AM

                      I liked Crysis alot but I'm with Baron on this one, I enjoyed the original Farcry a lot more then the Crysis series so far (although I havnt played Crysis 2 yet)

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                      September 20, 2011 2:46 PM

                      No, not at all - the story in Far Cry is minimal and what there is is hilarious. Crysis is also bad but there's a lot more of it and it's bad in a just bad way, not in a schlocky European way.

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                        September 20, 2011 4:45 PM

                        Really? I liked Crysis's story. It thoughtit was really good. And I agree about the schlocky Far Cry story. Jack Carver reminded me of Van Damme where Nomad was the likeable professional soldier. Crysis was much better all around.

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                          September 20, 2011 5:13 PM

                          What about Crysis's story was good? It was one of the most generic alien invasion stories ever. There was nothing interesting about any of the characters either.

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                            September 20, 2011 5:14 PM

                            It's like a good Michael Bay movie.

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                              September 20, 2011 5:20 PM

                              Crysis is nothing like Bad Boys.

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                                September 20, 2011 5:59 PM

                                No, but it's like the good parts of Transformers.

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                                  September 20, 2011 6:07 PM

                                  I can't help you out of this self abuse Wisp, you are the one who has to choose to stop.

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                          September 20, 2011 5:17 PM

                          Crysis' story is like just about every videogame story - a retarded, pointless emulation of some Hollywood cliche or another. In this case, a takeoff of a Roland Emmerich film.

                          This goes for both Crysis games.

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          September 20, 2011 2:28 PM

          lol they'll never make games like that again.

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      September 20, 2011 6:01 AM

      [deleted]

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      September 20, 2011 6:06 AM

      If I were a developer with Kaos, I would be totally pissed right now.

      I'm sure that there's legal action, the IP all being in THQ's name and the like, but the fact they were shut down in line apparently due to the poor reception of the game ( http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35190/THQ_Shutters_UK_Studio_Homefront_Developer_Kaos.php ) -- only to have THQ revive it soon afterwards... that's really slimy.

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        September 20, 2011 6:06 AM

        er, that there's NO legal action...

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        September 20, 2011 6:28 AM

        [deleted]

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        September 20, 2011 6:36 AM

        Well they should have put more effort into it, frankly. The multiplayer was OK, but hackers kinda put a damper on how much fun it was to play. The single player campaign had so much potential to tell an interesting story, but it's like they didn't actually get around to fleshing out the characters beyond a 1 page character sheet (including a picture). You never really spend time with any of the characters, or even really get to find out anything interesting about them. It's nearly impossible to care about them at all, especially since they're useless as AI teammates.

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        September 20, 2011 9:08 AM

        THQ didn't like the results of one developer but liked the franchise. Moved to another developer. Doesn't seem slimey at all, especially since the customers didn't really like the product Dev#1 made.

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        September 20, 2011 10:37 AM

        I would of been pissed working at a bad developer studio like Kaos too.

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      September 20, 2011 6:27 AM

      I need to finish that game. I put one play session in and then forgot about it. It's in the same boat as DNF at the moment.

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      September 20, 2011 6:27 AM

      [deleted]

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        September 20, 2011 6:44 AM

        I doubt it considering how terrible their Koreans were in Crysis, i doubt they have anything to add here.

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        September 20, 2011 7:23 AM

        as long as they leave out aliens it should be like the good parts of crysis?

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      September 20, 2011 6:28 AM

      the idea of homefront was neat... the execution sucked

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      September 20, 2011 7:25 AM

      So disappointed with that game. Played about 2 hours SP and a couple more MP.

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      September 20, 2011 7:25 AM

      2014 release... guess we aren't seeing next-gen consoles until sometime after 2014?

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      September 20, 2011 7:29 AM

      the MP in that game was actually pretty enjoyable

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      September 20, 2011 7:47 AM

      Space Marine better get a god damned sequel if Homefront is getting one.

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        September 20, 2011 8:47 AM

        I need Homeworld 3 first.

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          September 20, 2011 9:03 AM

          FUCKING HOMEWORLD THREE ON MY FACE NOWWWWWW

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          September 20, 2011 9:48 AM

          One of the Relic devs made mention on a Space Marine forum about "unannounced Relic RTS" in his Steam list:
          http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=26528897#item_26528897

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            September 20, 2011 9:51 AM

            It better be Homeworld 3! If not I'll take a COH sequel.

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              September 20, 2011 10:01 AM

              I'm guessing it's not DoW3, just because DoW3 has been discussed (though not officially "announced" I guess).

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                September 20, 2011 10:47 AM

                DoW2 still has another 2 game breaking expansions to go, though!

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                  September 20, 2011 2:16 PM

                  It's been said that retribution would be the last expansion, although something may have changed since then. Also, game breaking? What?

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          September 20, 2011 10:26 AM

          It wouldn't be a Homefront thread without a Homeworld 3 love fest

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          September 20, 2011 10:30 AM

          i read the thread title and thought it was "Homeworld" then got all confused, then sad. =\

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          September 20, 2011 11:20 AM

          Who does mace need to fuck to get this done?

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      September 20, 2011 8:01 AM

      given the reviews and general shack consensus, Homefront will be picked up from Steam for $5. NO MORE, NO LESS!

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        September 20, 2011 8:16 AM

        That is probably over paying.

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        September 20, 2011 8:29 AM

        so... you wouldn't get it for $1 on sale?

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          September 20, 2011 9:02 AM

          fuck no! it's gotta be $5! i wouldn't snort coke off a dead hooker's ass with a $1 bill, why, in god's name, would i buy a game with it?!

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      September 20, 2011 8:18 AM

      [deleted]

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        September 20, 2011 8:26 AM

        and shit all over it with aliens/mutants

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          September 20, 2011 8:56 AM

          Yup. Aliens and draconian DRM: two things that Crytek is in love with, but would be a far better developer if they dropped.

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        September 20, 2011 12:05 PM

        It's pretty funny that the makers of the premier Korean-Tossing Simulator get tapped for the Homefront sequel.

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          September 20, 2011 2:59 PM

          Actually, it's Crytek UK who is getting tasked for Homefront. Crytek UK used to be Free Radical, the developers of the Timesplitters series of games. Timesplitters was a series of console-only first-person shooters, the last of which was released in 2005... that's about all I know about Timesplitters.

          I'm still really nervous, and would hope that Crytek Frankfurt will keep some of their worst aspects off of Homefront, but I'd be setting myself up for disappointment.

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      September 20, 2011 8:20 AM

      Maybe it won't SUCK so terribly bad as the first one. Regardless HF2 is already on my shit list from the bad taste the first one left.

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      September 20, 2011 8:48 AM

      For just a split second i got this confused with HomeWORLD.

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      September 20, 2011 9:01 AM

      Maximum Patriotism!

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      September 20, 2011 10:27 AM

      Is there a "Worst decisions in the history of gaming" list? We need to make one so we can put this on it.

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      September 20, 2011 10:35 AM

      I am tired and misread, basically everything, and thought this was about a Homeworld sequel :(

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      September 20, 2011 10:39 AM

      What the fuck.

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      September 20, 2011 10:43 AM

      When they scrubbed the original antagonist I knew there were problems.

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      September 20, 2011 10:50 AM

      Hymefront 2

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      September 20, 2011 11:32 AM

      I knew it... once crytek made a console game that we will never see another pc exclusive ever again... *sigh* other developer is gone.

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        September 20, 2011 11:50 AM

        Hey as long as the PC version of any developers game gets some love I don't care if its multiplatform. What I do not want is a shitty port followed by the piracy speech from the publisher.

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      September 20, 2011 11:35 AM

      My sincere hope is that at the turning point of this game you find out the real bad guys are mutants. Or aliens. Or some amalgamation of both.

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      September 20, 2011 2:04 PM

      THe mulitple, concept wise, actually wasnt too bad. It had some good points to it, but executed badly I think. The SP campaign on the other hand blew chunks

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      September 20, 2011 2:38 PM

      So about 6 hours into the game either fucking mutants or aliens are going to attack right? Actually that would be pretty hilarious. You have some WW3-like game going on and then BAM... fucking aliens enter the arena.

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      September 20, 2011 2:48 PM

      what baffles me is how decent Frontlines: Fuel of War was and how shitty Homefront turned out to be. Homefront was nearly a step backwards for them.

      As much as I respect Frank Delise and Co. for Desert Combat, the prototyping of BF2 and the making of Frontlines, they really dropped the ball with Homefront.

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      September 20, 2011 5:07 PM

      homefront: london sounds uncomfortably close to another piece of major suckage... whatever they do with it, it definitely needs a better name.

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      September 20, 2011 5:14 PM

      Half way through reading the article aliens showed up and

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      September 20, 2011 9:44 PM

      Wow, this is awesome news. I love Homefront, and Crytek has made 3 of my favorite FPS of the last 5 years. I'm excited to see what they're going to do with the world.

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      September 21, 2011 4:56 AM

      I could see this turning out well, but Crytek is really going to have to work on reducing the amount of derp factor they inject into their games. The things characters would say in Crysis 2 were downright embarrassing at times. The story was just plain bad. That game was only saved by the fact that it looked so good and was pretty fun to play.

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      September 21, 2011 10:43 AM

      I really enjoyed the feel of the first Homefront, there were a lot of great moments in it...with of course the obvious flaws. Can't wait to see what Crytek does with it! :) (Though I wished they kept it China instead of changing it to a unified Korea)

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