The single-player campaign features many elements found in many other first-person shooter video games, such as Call of Duty and Medal of Honor. It takes 4 to 10 hours to finish the game, all depending on the player's experience.
The multiplayer component of Homefront is focused on large-scale, vehicle-based combat reminiscent of Kaos Studios' first title, Frontlines: Fuel of War. The defining innovation of Homefront's multiplayer is its battle points system, which is an in-game currency that allows a player to purchase weapons, gear, and vehicles. Players can earn points by completing objectives and increasing their amount of kills, and can choose to spend their points between many small purchases such as weapons, missiles, and drones, or larger, higher cost items like helicopters and tanks.
The multiplayer gameplay takes place in the period before the United States Armed Forces were completely scattered. Each copy of Homefront contains an online pass, granting users access to the full multiplayer experience. Although the online pass is not required to play multiplayer, those who play without an online pass will be unable to progress further than level 5 of the total 75 levels.
The online multiplayer function of the game is now defunct due to the sale and closure of THQ in late 2013. Multiplayer is still playable (as of 2017) on PC.
Homefront is set in a dystopic United States, in the year 2027. The game's backstory dates back to the 2010s, where there are high tensions between North Korea and the global powers due to the country's military aggression, including its successful nuclear weapons test and the sinking of a South Korean ship.
In 2013 however, one year after the death of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il, his son and successor, Kim Jong-un, successfully reunites the two Koreas leading to the birth of the Greater Korean Republic (GKR), a technological and economic global power that comprises the military strength of the North and the economic power of the South. By the year 2015, a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia breaks out, both becoming nuclear-armed states, devastated the global oil supply, causing gas prices to skyrocket to $19.99 per gallon, leaving many countries in debt and causing mass hysteria. This precipitates extreme economic turmoil and massive social unrest in the United States. Subsequently, in 2017, the U.S. military recalls much of its overseas presence, particularly in the Pacific. A year later, Japan, significantly weakened due to the diminishing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, is easily conquered by the GKR and is annexed shortly thereafter, becoming the first GKR puppet state.
In 2022, conditions in the United States get worse with the collapse of the financial system and an Asian bird flu epidemic that claims six million lives, forcing the Mexican government to quarantine the country by setting up immigration quotas as the Asian bird flu continues throughout the United States. By 2024, Korea's annexation has continued throughout Southeast Asia, including its emerging economic powers, giving the GKR an empire reminiscent of Imperial Japan. Finally, in 2025, the Greater Korean Republic, now a major superpower, launched a supposed advanced GPS satellite that would be a signal of peace, but is actually a secret orbital weapon that detonated a high-altitude nuclear device over the U.S., creating an EMP blast that wipes out much of the nation's electrical infrastructure. In the ensuing chaos, the Korean People's Army (KPA) launches an instant amphibious invasion, starting the Korean-American War. They seize control of Hawaii and much of the U.S. Pacific Coast. Korean paratroopers are deployed over the Midwestern United States, and with the U.S. military severely crippled and scattered, launches a final offensive to take control of the remaining states. However, the Americans were able to counterattack, leaving the Eastern States free and effectively dividing the nation at the irradiated Mississippi River, with the Western States under GKR occupation, known as the "New Korean Federation of Occupied America", a puppet state of the GKR.
In 2027, two years after the beginning of the Korean-American War and the beginning of the occupation, Robert Jacobs, a former U.S. Marine Corps combat helicopter pilot, is awakened in his apartment in Montrose, Colorado and ordered to a re-education camp in Alaska. Jacobs sees that the Korean troops have seized control of the town, taking potentially valuable residents into custody and executing resistors. However, the bus carrying Jacobs is ambushed by American resistance fighters Connor (Tom Pelphrey) (a former Marine from North Carolina) and Rianna (Hannah Cabell) (a hunting expert from Colorado), who lead him to Oasis, a resistance hideout founded by local state patrolman Boone Karlson (Jim T. Coleman). Boone, Connor, and Rianna are aware of Jacobs's background as a pilot and recruit him to help recover fuel for the scattered U.S. military forces. Boone initiates the operation with himself, Jacobs, Connor, Rianna, and Hopper (Joel de la Fuente) (a Korean-American technical expert from Oakland, California).
The group plans to steal several tracking beacons from a school used as a labor exchange facility, with the help of their "inside man" Arnie (Scott Sowers). These beacons are to be placed on fuel trucks so they can be tracked and hijacked. However, Arnie betrays the team in order to protect his children, forcing the team to kill him and eliminate all forces in the camp. They discover a mass grave in the school's baseball field and narrowly escape Korean reinforcements by hiding among the bodies.
The rebels continue their attacks on the KPA, assaulting an occupied discount warehouse store, where Jacobs, Connor, and Rianna succeed in locating the trucks and planting a beacon on one of them. They return to Oasis, only to find that Boone and all of the base's inhabitants have been discovered and killed by Korean troops. They also discover that the Korean People's Air Force are attacking a nearby town beyond the wall, as payback for the raid the night before. The group narrowly escape with other Colorado resistance fighters by breaching the walls enclosing the town.
The team has the information that a suitable helicopter is located in a survivalist encampment in Utah. As the residents of the camp are violent towards Koreans and Americans alike, the team infiltrates the camp and manages to steal the helicopter. They pursue and hijack the fuel convoy. With Jacobs providing air support, the team continues their trip to San Francisco, where they deliver their jet fuel to aid the U.S. military there.
The U.S. Armed Forces begin their West Coast counter-offensive by trying to retake San Francisco. They launch an assault from Marin County that succeeds in retaking most of the Golden Gate Bridge with ground personnel, AA guns, and fighter aircraft, as the U.S. Navy reinforcements arrive. Nearing the San Francisco side of the bridge, the Americans find themselves outgunned by a massive KPA battalion. Although the ground forces have captured and reprogrammed the KPA ground-based air defenses, attaining air superiority for the U.S. Air Force, the American aircraft cannot identify where to strike due to the smoke, debris and confusion. Realizing that they are at a critical turning point, Connor lights a flare and advances on foot towards the enemy convoy and orders an air strike onto his own position, sacrificing himself to ensure that American ground forces can retake the city.
The news of the successful operation is reported by European media, with the Bay Area counter-attack proving to be a major turning point in America's guerrilla war against the GKR occupation. With San Francisco taken, many of the West Coast cities are returned to U.S. hands and the military launches a counter-offensive to take back the occupied states. With these victories, the EU Defense Councilschedules an emergency meeting, declares war on the Greater Korean Republic, and begin planning an offensive to eradicate the KPA from the United States.
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