“Homefront” video game from THQ looks at United States under occupation

It’s 2027, and a reunified Korea has invaded the United States.

That’s the premise of “Homefront,” a new video game from THQ that explores what might happen if Americans were forced to form a resistance to an invading army.

The game’s lead level designer, Rex Dickson, said the game deals with the foreign occupation of America, and how that could come about.

“We have what we call pillars, or guiding statements, and one of those pillars was ‘familiar has become alien,’” Dickson said. “We did a lot of research into post-peak oil, what would happen after an oil crash, when gas was no longer available. What would our country look like if democracy were to fall apart, or fail, when there were no jobs left, when things began to get more and more abandoned?”

Dickson said designers looked at some modern cities, where large neighborhoods have been abandoned in the throes of the Great Recession.

“Anyone in the United States who grew up in suburbia will immediately understand these places,” he said.

The “Homefront” game is expected to spawn sequels and already has led to a novel, “Homefront: The Voice of Freedom,” by John Milius and Raymond Benson, exploring the game’s backstory.

“Homefront is set to become one of THQ’s most successful original IP launches,” said Danny Bilson, EVP Core Games, THQ, in a release. “The team at Kaos (has) spent three years building an FPS (first person shooter) that competes with the very best, offering a thrilling and original single-player experience and hundreds of hours of multiplayer.”

THQ is providing dedicated servers for console and PC versions of “Homefront.”

“Dedicated servers allow us to support 32 players on large maps with infantry, vehicles and drones, and level the playing field compared to titles that rely on user-hosted games,” said Drew Como, director of infrastructure, THQ.

In the game, the reunified Korea acts much like Japan in World War II, island-hopping until it is able to control large portions of Asia.

“They attack the United States with an electromagnetic pulse weapon, and that is a very real-world threat,” Dickson said. “It knocks out all electricity and computer devices and shuts down all communication.”

This allows the Korean army to mount an incursion into the United States.

“The Koreans don’t do a full-scale invasion of the United States; they go after pockets here and there,” trying to take over resource-heavy areas, Dickson said.

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