THQ VP calls out Call of Duty's 'jingoism,' says Homefront will be different

Yes, THQ’s upcoming Homefront is a shooter about repelling North Korean invaders from US soil. Yes, it’s penned by John Milius, screenwriter of Red Dawn and Conan the Barbarian (andalleged inspirationfor John Goodman’s slightly batshit character in The Big Lebowski). But it will not, according to THQ core-game VP Danny Bilson, have what he calls the “steroided-out, super-soldier, waving the American flag” mentality of games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.

When askedby GR sister siteCVGwhy THQ would launch a new IP into the fiercely competitive FPS market, Bilson – who once worked as a writer on Medal of Honor: Frontline and MoH: Rising Sun – said that the “big X on [Homefront] was emotion. Not just fear and adrenaline – emotion.

“In last year's Call Of Duty,” Bilson said, “where they kind of got to America during a Russian invasion, note there were no civilians anywhere. It was like being on a lot in a movie studio. Everything was pristine. It was really fun – loved the game, those guys are brilliant. But our mission is to go where the other guys aren't.”

“All the tonality of Homefront is very different to what's out there today,” Bilson said. “It's violence with consequence. There is civilian misery in this game. … Everything we've done in this comes after looking at history, looking at occupied lands and guerrilla warfare throughout time.”


Above: Jingoistic or not, Homefront's pre-E3 trailer was creepy enough to grab our interest

"We're a global company," Bilson said."No jingoism here. Some of that's political, some of that's personal."He also added that Homefront won’t be a US-centric series. While the first game follows a small group of rebels from a farm in Colorado to a battle to retake San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, “you're going to see Homefront: London later on in the franchise,” Bilson said.

Source:CVG

Aug 2, 2010

Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.