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[Tapejara]

Back then, Dambuster Studios was called Crytek UK – having originally started out as Free Radical Design, which developed the popular TimeSplitters games, and was founded by members of the legendary Rare Software team behind GoldenEye. Free Radical Design had fallen on hard times and was bought out by Crytek in 2009. Giant US company THQ, which published Homefront, approached Crytek UK to develop the sequel, saying it wasn’t happy with the quality of the original. “We were looking for Crytek UK to have its own IP and franchise to work on, so it suited us well, too,” says Zala. “Back then, in 2012, we conceived a game that would be next-gen, but probably a bit more linear than it is today.

Remarkably, as Zala explains, Homefront: The Revolution benefitted massively from the turmoil. “Crytek was unhappy with the progress and reception of Crysis 3 [which came out in February 2013],” he says. “So we reassessed Homefront. It had been my long-standing ambition to turn it into an open-world shooter and, although that was supposed to be for the next version, we said: ‘You know what? Let’s go ahead and do that now.’ That was July 2013: we owned the IP, as we were Crytek UK, and we moved the game to an open-world structure, which really rebooted the development process.”

http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-revolution-game-dambuster-studios?CMP=twt_gu

I find it interesting that Crysis 3's mixed reception influenced the game's change to open world.

 

[ashecitism]

Would be nice if it worked out for them, after all the shit, but the beta impressions are quite poor.

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

judging by both the reception of the general game quality and the technical performance... maybe it should have

 

[Dictator93]

The change to openworld mid dev shows how messed up Crytek's decision making priorities were at the time / possibly still are. Chasing market trends and market performance data instead of, you know, creating something unique and market leading itself via vision. That is what Crysis 1 was: pure, uncompromising vision. Everything since then was a nice "me-too" to the latest trend. I fear VR will end up that way for them as well as they switched from COD follower, to cinematic gamer follower, to F2P follower, and now--- VR follower?

 

[Warxard]

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, losing one publisher in the course of developing a game is unlucky, losing two goes beyond misfortune – but Homefront: The Revolution has indisputably benefited from Dambuster’s traumas. If it had blissfully enjoyed an uninterrupted development process, it would have joined the ranks of generic single-path shooters, and the modern gaming world demands more than that: see the open-world co-op gameplay of Call of Duty: Black Ops III, or the RPG-infused depth of The Division and Destiny.

Oh. Fuck. Off.

Zala reckons that Revolution’s open-world single-player story contains over 30 hours of gameplay, and a zonal structure is designed to bring in diversity. “It’s a much deeper game,” he says. “Rather than your traditional run-and-gun, you’re talking about an open world with scavenge mechanics, progression and loops. You have to deal with asymmetric combat against a superior force, and you have to choose where you fight.”

Holy shit look at all of these meaningless buzzwords.

Man, I wanted to be excited for this shit but this is like the same generic horseshit that they attempted to avoid. lmao

 

[KKRT00]

The change to openworld mid dev shows how messed up Crytek's decision making priorities were at the time / possibly still are. Chasing market trends and market performance data instead of, you know, creating something unique and market leading itself via vision. That is what Crysis 1 was: pure, uncompromising vision. Everything since then was a nice "me-too" to the latest trend. I fear VR will end up that way for them as well as they switched from COD follower, to cinematic gamer follower, to F2P follower, and now--- VR follower?

To be fair You cant be a VR follower, because its still in the infant days.
Also The Hunt was pretty nice new idea, what a pity that it got cancelled ;/

 

[IvanJ]

If this wasn't a paid article, the better title would have been: "Homefront - The game that should have died".
And, in just a few months, we will have a ChartTrack article: "Homefront - Dead on Arrival".

 

[JumPeRJumPzZ]

I really wish this former Free Radical guys some success but sadly Homefront wont be that...

 

[PIMPBYBLUD]

The open beta was horrific.

 

[JigglesBunny]

The game will die the second it's released, I'm afraid.
It's a disaster in every sense of the word.

 

[CHC]

I mean, look, I'm all for "underdog" games but I just don't get why they seem to have such conviction that this game is going to be good and offer something unique. It's absolutely nothing special and they should have just let it go when they had the chance, frankly. It's not like this is some grand artistic vision that just HAS to be expressed.

....see the open-world co-op gameplay of Call of Duty: Black Ops III

wut