Homefront (video game)

Home is where the war is.

Homefront is a game set in an occupied USA in 2027. The entire free-market world has more-or-less gone to shit. The USA and China have collapsed in on themselves like disused flans in cupboards in the years after 2012. In the USA, the economic collapse served to promote great social unrest verging on but never quite spilling over into civil war[1]. A rejuvenated Peoples' Democratic Republic of Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong-un (son of Kim Jong-Il) quickly seized the day. Within the space of two decades of annexation and gunboat diplomacy, all of Asia except subcontinental India and China answers to the Government of the Greater Korean Republic.

Looking to secure further resources in support of their domestic industries, Korean High Command determines the Americas to be the best option - the obsolescent US military is much weaker and the country's internal problems are far greater than either China's or India's, and the country is far more sparsely populated and resource-rich to boot. In 2025 the GKR detonates a high-yield nuclear weapon deployed from orbit over north America, the EMP killing electronics across 75% of the continent (bordering areas of Mexico and Canada are affected, but generally ignored). This is followed up by an invasion and occupation of the Pacific Coast of the USA and the securing of strategic sites further inland for resource extraction. The politicians in Washington finally stop bickering as they realize that the situation is truly beyond their control. With the partial invasion well underway and the remnants of the central government and military in total disarray, the USA has effectively been dissolved overnight. Everyone west of the now-irradiated -- another Communist-Korean dick move-- Mississippi river finds themselves living under Korean Quislings, in crazed survivalist enclaves or in total anarchy - and it's not quite clear which of those options is worse.

You are put in the shoes of former Marine pilot Robert Jacobs, a man the occupying power is very interested in employing, forcefully if necessary. Fortunately for Jacobs, he is liberated when his prisoner convoy is hit by the local resistance chapter, who needs his piloting skills for a dangerous mission, that, if successful, could help the struggling remnants of the American military retake San Francisco.

The game itself is a First-Person Shooter, similar in gameplay to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series. Like the Call of Duty series, the single-player campaign makes heavy use of scripting, and most levels involve the player following and taking orders from a small squad of fellow resistance fighters. The multiplayer is notable for featuring dedicated servers, with gameplay similar to the studio's previous release, Frontlines: Fuel of War.

Tropes used in Homefront (video game) include:
  • Action Girl: Rianna.
  • AKA-47: For the QBZ-03, known as the T3AK. The Panzerfaust 3 is simply called RPG launcher. Averted with almost everything else since they have their proper names.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: Although in the game it was developed and built by the KPA, the Goliath is based on an American unmanned combat ground vehicle called the Crusher. It was built back in 2006 for DARPA, and like the Goliath, can be remote-controlled.
  • Anti-Hero: Conner is this in spades.

Hopper: (after Conner's Berserk Button has been pressed and the team has to kill a rather large platoon of soldiers where the original plan was simply to sneak by) Everyone's dead. You happy now?
Conner: Yeah. I am.

  • Artificial Stupidity: Partially averted. Your fellow members of La Résistance can easily take on small to medium pockets of enemies by themselves (helps that there are at least 2 of them with you always) and are invincible (in normal gameplay).
  • All There in the Manual: The website has a timeline that shows how the United States economic and military superpower status collapses while North Korea conquers the world.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: After the successful Resistance raids, the 718s attack the Resistance hideout and killed everyone.
  • Armor Is Useless: Interestingly, the mostly unarmored Crazy Survivalists can take more hits than the armored KPA soldiers. Probably why they don't strip and use the armor of the captured KPA troops.
  • Asian and Nerdy: Hopper is the cell's "tech guy" and is clearly much more into computers and robots than fighting. The other Asians in the game are the sort of folks much more likely to stuff people into gym lockers than be stuffed into one.
    • Hopper can still kick some serious ass as well, looking not remotely like a stereotypical nerd in any respect.
  • Author Appeal: This game is written by John Milius. Yes, the very same guy who made the original Red Dawn film.
  • Bad Future: There really is nothing good that can be said about a world where North Korea takes over the U.S..
  • Banned In Korea: Both North and South. In South Korea's case, it's because THQ never submitted Homefront to the Game Ratings Board of Korea in order to receive a rating. THQ probably figured that, due to the backstory involving South Korea submitting to North Korean rule being highly controversial to South Koreans, not enough people would buy the game to warrant a Korean localization.
    • Interestingly, the villains were originally going to be Chinese, but the developers were warned that China would probably ban everything their team made if such were the case. While China was cool with being the enemy in the purely military Dragon Rising, the marketing department though that a game depicting them as genocidal savages might be a bit much.
  • Big Bad: Kim Jong-un and the Greater Korean Republic.
  • Big Blackout: The KPR's "message of peace" satellite broadcast, which is actually an EMP that kills power to 90% of the North American continent.
  • Berserk Button: Connor's gets punched when the cell finds the mass graves. You can almost hear something in his brain going "snap". As it would.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Twice in fact. The first black dude is a Red Herring.
    • Fridge Horror here. Judging from the position of the bodies they made Boone watch as they killed the rest of the Resistance Cell.
  • Blatant Lies: Pretty much most of the Great Korean Republic propaganda is like this. For instance, a news clip shows that the North Korean launched a satellite that supposed to bring a "message of peace", immediately before the satellite fires an EMP over the United States so that the Greater Korean Republic army can invade countries easily and massacre the local population of the country they invaded.
    • Also, when the Greater Korean Republic invades United States, there are booklets and propaganda photos they show that they came to "help" the Americans in their bad economic situation. Mind you that "helping" them involves labor camps, execution squads, and mass graves.
    • Actually subverted by one propaganda broadcast which claims that civilians were accidentally killed in the crossfire after resistance fighters took shelter from a Korean patrol in their neighborhood, which is exactly what happened in the previous mission.
  • Bowdlerise: The Japanese version will be removing all references to North Korea from the game. Canadian invaders? Yeah, the cheesecake images will be of female hockey players doing Mounties on a Zamboni.
    • According to the Japanese/Asian distributor Spike, they did this to follow CERO regulations with regards to existing nations, especially when there are still tensions between Japan and North Korea. Not good.
    • The Japanese version's intro also leaves out the KPA irradiating the Mississippi River, opting instead for an extended sequence of American soldiers fighting desperately against the KPA. This is likely due to Homefront's Japanese version releasing a month after the March 2011 tsunami, and during the resulting nuclear power plant accidents (especially Fukushima Dai-ichi).
  • Brand X: Averted, with such brands as Hooters, White Castle, and Lumber Liquidator (yes, that is a real store and not just a take off of Home Depot).
    • The reason they put this is not because of Product Placement, but rather to invoke the feeling of familiarity.
    • They also include Randy's Donuts, an iconic Los Angeles store, yet place it in a level clearly not based on L.A.
    • Another anachronistic one is the aforementioned White Castle appearing in the opening cutscene, which there isn't even a White Castle in the entire state of Colorado. Maybe both Randy's and White Castle become franchise operations by 2025.
  • Car Fu: In Multiplayer, vehicles can be used this way, including unique kill icons for kills done this way. The game even keep a counter on the roadkills you made for each vehicles.
  • Channel Hop: Now that Kaos has closed, the sequel is being developed by Crytek(!).
  • The Chick: Rianna. She may be able to kick ass like everyone else but she has her heart on her sleeve more than the others.
  • Companion Cube: A minor example; Hopper seems unusually fond of the remote-operated Goliath, and he's pretty crestfallen when Conner uses it as a rolling bomb after it's damaged beyond repair, even treating its destruction as a kind of Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Cool Car: Goliath, a self-navigating semi-autonomous combat vehicle with a Gatling gun and rockets launchers. Only while it's on your side though. The climactic battle involves you having to take down an enemy Goliath and experiencing exactly what it feels like to be on the other end of the gun.
  • Crapsack World: Let's see now. Korea being unified under the North Korean rule under Kim Jong-un's leadership (and the Nobel committee gave him the Peace Prize for that), more Middle Eastern wars cause the belligerents to torch the oil fields indiscriminately, making oil resources scarce, the United States economic and governmental structure collapses and enters a permanent economic depression, the United Nations gets disbanded, an epidemic breaks out in the United States, The Great Korean Republic invades their neighboring countries from Japan to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines while the entire world doesn't give a damn about this. And when North Korea invades United States with an EMP blast and their military, it gets worse from there.
  • Creator Killer: Although Homefront's sold over two million copies, THQ has shut down Kaos Studios anyway. It appears that whatever plans Kaos had to continue Homefront's story will be in the hands of the Montreal studio.
    • Though the reason for this was given as the fact that Kaos is run in New York, and it's just too expensive to run a studio there. It was a sad news piece indeed.
      • Although didn't kill it, it was one of the factors in THQ's money problems.
  • Korea Takes Over The World: The game was originally was going to have Chinese as the bad guys, but the developers scrapped that idea and went with North Korea instead.
  • Crazy Survivalist: Survivalist ideologies became very popular during the timeline when the United States economy is collapsing along with patriotic fervor, which could explain why all the states were given self-autonomy. This does not turn out well. To clarify, the Korean aggression sparked anti-Asian sentiment. At first, it was simply indirect violence such as burning down houses. But as the war progresses, it turns into full out racism to the point of some survivalist groups lynching Asian Americans and treating captives and each other as badly as the Koreans do. The survivalists you personally encounter in the game, for instance, 'offer' Conner his life and the aid they had previously promised in exchange for being able to lynch Hopper and keep Rianna as 'entertainment' and you can hear several conversations about the group collecting Korean bounties on resistance fighters.
  • Crushing the Populace: The first action we see the Greater Korean Republic take is shooting several parents in front of their children before they get sent to labor camps/breeding pens. It gets worse from there.
  • Determinator: The PC gets blown up in cutscenes several times, but always gets better. It's Lampshaded at one point.

Hopper: Jacobs! That's like, the fifth thing you've fallen off of and lived!

  • Did Not Do the Research: In an old newspaper article, the Prime Minister of Malaysia is said to be Mahathir Mohamad. Although it's possible he could have been re-elected in Homefront's timeline, he would be 93 by the date of the article in which he's mentioned (September 13, 2018)--which makes it unlikely.
  • Dirty Communist: Well, the storyline is made by the same guy who made Red Dawn. See Author Appeal above.
  • Disc One Nuke: The M249 light machinegun. It kills anyone who isn't an Elite Mook in one shot, has a 100-round magazine, is actually reasonably accurate, and can be found in most of the game's missions. It makes the Iron Man (no deaths) and Guerilla (Harder Than Hard difficulty) achievements a lot easier to obtain.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: It appears that North Korea unifying South Korea and invading Japan isn't enough for them to be satisfied.
    • The Survivalists basically engage in wholesale torture of any Asian Americans they can lay their hands on.
      • The North Koreans also destroy your hometown as revenge for your successful Resistance raids.
  • Divided States of America: In the chaos leading up to the events of the game, the government grants the states full autonomy, which leads to this. One noteworthy incident being described in the backstory: Illinois threatening Texas with military action after border guards killed several migrating Chicagoans.
    • Also, the Koreans managed to literally bisect America by irradiating the entire Mississippi River
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Commies invading United States and killing everyone in the path. Where have we seen this before?
    • On a completely different note, The Lancer (later the leader) of Jacobs' Resistance cell is named Conner.
  • Doomed Hometown: The North Koreans carpet bomb your Colorado hometown after you mount a successful raid which kills hundred of Korean soldiers.
  • Double-Speak: If the Greater Korean Republic satellites that shoots EMP that gives "a message of peace" rings a bell.
  • Eagle Land: Type I obviously. Though not played as straight as most examples since the American populace in the game is heavily fractured amongst resistance fighters, civilians, survivalists, and the military.
    • Type II is heavily parodied in an in-universe music video made by nationalists on the official website.
  • Easy Logistics: The GKR decides the best place for their next invasion is the United States, which is all the way across the ocean, rather than the nearby heavily populated and resource rich Chinese territories that are in disarray.
  • Elite Mooks: Korean Special Forces soldiers known as 718s comprise a large portion of the enemies in the last level of the game. They're equipped with high-caliber weaponry and have 50% more health than the standard KPA troops, allowing them to take 1 or 2 more bullets. At range their armor also makes them look like the Juggernauts from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.
  • Empathy Doll Shot: Early in the game, Jacobs has to cover his allies from a nearby treehouse. Naturally, it still has crayon pictures up and the requisite teddy bear, with a Korean chopper flying past just as he reaches the top of the ladder.
  • The Empire: The Greater Korean Republic, which aggressively conquers all of Southeast Asia and Japan, and then goes on to invade the western US.
  • Enemy Chatter
  • Even Connor Has Standards: Connor's a callous Anti-Hero who takes perhaps a little too much zeal in killing the enemy, but even he disapproves of the Crazy Survivalists and their methods.
  • Everything Is Racist: The fact that the bad guys in this game are Koreans may make others think this game is highly racist towards Koreans. Nevermind the fact that the game developer team consulted with a former CIA field agent who happens to have Korean ancestry in order to paint out the realistic framework of North Korea invading United States. Conversely, though, it's shown that anyone can be equally monstrous such as the survivalist groups.
  • Expy: The entire game is an expy of Red Dawn written by its author. John Milinus even wrote the novelization (with the help of James Bond author Raymond Benson).
  • Fallen States of America: Even before the invasion, the US was a wreck, with a collapsed economy, rampant diseases, and internal fighting.
  • Final Boss: An enemy Goliath serves as the last confrontation. Even though the fight is unusually easy for a final boss battle, it is epic as hell.
  • For Want of a Nail: The idea of North Korea invading the United States is considered highly unrealistic by many people, considering that the North Korean army, industry, and economy are in poverty, with Kim Jong blackmailing for food. However, a country or a regime thought to be harmless or pathetic in the present can become a threat in the near future, if they take the right steps (and if unfortunate events weaken the major powers). This is why the game is set Twenty Minutes Into the Future--and, as mentioned by the Korean-American former CIA field agent:

"...we went to a very rigorous, academic research process to make sure to not only look at North Korea's current state but to look at historical examples how things could parallel and turn events. History repeats itself. From today to the day the invasion starts in the game, if you combine everything, the odds are very very slim this becomes true. But when you look at the storyline step by step, every step is a coinflip but a plausible step. So once you get there, it's plausible. And from there the next step is plausible as well. Even though the whole thing is fictional, it comes with plausible baby steps."

  • Genghis Gambit: The collectible news articles reveal that Kim Jong-un was able to reunify Korea peacefully by making Japan their shared enemy, largely by taking advantage of the fact that South Koreans hate the Japanese much more than they hate North Koreans (in fact he was able to incorporate most of the smaller Southeast Asian nations in the GKR in large part due to their shared grievances against the Japanese stemming from WW 2). It's strongly implied that quite a lot of the Korea military forces are actually South Koreans who are willingly and happily taking part in the process of bringing America down a peg.
  • Good Guns, Bad Guns: Averted real hard. The Korean forces use entirely NATO or American firearms, instead of the Soviet overstock they have in real-life. Justified because of the reunification, which made former South Korean weapons accessible to the North and they have seized the American factories and armories. The German Panzerfaust 3 is justified since Japan and South Korea produces them (though still doesn't explain why they also show up in the hands of American soldiers in multiplayer). The only non-NATO firearm you'll encounter is the Chinese-made PLA-issue QBZ-03 assault rifle.
  • Harder Than Hard: Guerilla difficulty, in which the enemies all have perfect aim and can pretty much kill you in a split second. Fortunately, it's still not as hard as Modern Warfare's Veteran difficulty.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Conner has quite a lot of this. While he has a burning, borderline sociopathic hatred for the Korean Occupation, in the later levels it becomes pretty clear this is purely nationalistic and not racial. He also strongly loaths the American Survivalist movement, civilians who don't participate in the Resistance, his own teammates when they fail to give 100%, and annoying kids. He also openly disdains the Survivalists because their cruelty towards Korean prisoners is purely for sick fun rather than serving any greater purpose.
    • Ironically, Rianna is the one who objects strongly to killing the Survivalists at the start. Then slowly, along with the player, she realizes that they are the biggest collection of psychos in America - and that includes the Nazi-esque North Koreans.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:In the final battle at the Golden Gate Bridge, a large North Korean convoy is heading towards the protagonists and their allies and the US Airforce is unable to identify who is friend and foe on the bridge. Connor, in what might be the most badass thing he has ever done, runs toward the convoy with a flare, telling the Airforce to target his position, sacrificing himself so the Airforce can destroy the convoy, killing him in process.

Connor: Fuck it. See the flare!? Fire on the Flare!

    • I don't know. Audie Murphy survived calling Artillery strikes on his own position multiple times.
    • What, no love for the Goliath and its C4-rific sacrifice?
  • Hide Your Children: Averted, the developers worked quite hard to make the player feel that he is fighting for his or her children's future and make the fight that much more personal. there are children at the rebel hideout, a video at the game website shows a classroom of elementary school children being indoctrinated and the interview of a child in a labor camp, in the opening of the first mission where the KPA made a child watch as they executed his parents, and a loading screen photo depicts a mass grave for children.
    • Would Hurt a Child: Heavily implies that the Korean People's Army does this TOO many times. Of course, there are official clips of American children being brainwashed in an elementary school, but that for strictly propaganda purposes.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The writers of Homefront actually predicted the actual cause as well as the time of Kim Jong-Il's death more or less right (arguably they were only off by a couple of weeks). So far they were wrong about Kim Jong-Un being a dangerously competent and charismatic Evil Genius, but the decade is still young.
  • History Repeats: If the world would have woken up when the Greater Korean Republic invades Japan, then we wouldn't have this story at all. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?
  • Hot-Blooded: Connor. Even when he's talking normally he sounds like he's shouting at you. The guy is just brimming with spiteful hatred towards the Koreans.
  • Improbable Power Discrepancy: The unarmored, t-shirt wearing survivalists can survive more damage than the body armor-wearing KPA soldiers that serve as the game's standard Mooks, simply by virtue of being fought later in the game.
  • Inferred Holocaust: Judging by some of the gameplay videos, backstory, and trailers, it appears that the Greater Korean Republic army kills everyone indiscriminately when they invaded the United States. Their occupied Asian states like Japan probably suffered the same fate as well.
    • Of course, like the Imperial Japan expansion, there are going to be quislings in the occupied United States who want to save their own asses or get themselves out of the bad economic situation.
  • In-Series Nickname: Connor refers to the KPA as "Kims", a reference to their leader. The right-wing survivalists call them "NorKs".
  • Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Types 3, 4 and 5 sprinkled all over the place. Some waist-high fences/barriers are meant to be crossed, but, apparently, only at certain points along their length.
  • Invaded States of America: The whole point of the game. It's called New Korean Federation of Occupied America.
  • Invisible Wall: Everywhere. If it's a path the developers don't want you to take, it will be impassible, even if there is no barrier there. If it's a path that you are supposed to take but that you're not intended to go through yet, it will be impassible. Even the few brief areas where you are given liberty to explore are littered with invisible walls so you don't explore the wrong places. Humorously, some of the invisible walls are rather poorly placed, with little gaps it's possible to slip through to get to places the developers don't want you to be. There's rarely any point in doing so, though.
  • Ironic Echo: Canada and Mexico closes their borders on United States.
    • Also, the Greater Korean Republic invades Japan.
  • It Got Worse: Apparently, the getting worse part starts when Kim Jong-un (Kim Jong-Il's son) came into power.
  • Just a Stupid Accent: The KPA in Multiplayer, unlike the Call of Duty series which have the non-English speaking factions speak their native tongue in multiplayer.
  • Kick the Dog: Truth in Television or not, Homefront has the North Koreans doing the following: separating families, executing parents in front of their children, putting people in labor camps (Doctors and Laywers in shale mines), pressing people into North Korean service at gun point, and randomly gunning down civilians in a suburb where there's fighting. Oh and they massacre civilians every time you blow up targets.
    • Connor also does his share of this, including brushing off the desperate pleas from a starving child, and insisting on leaving a team of Korean soldiers to die a painful death, after bombing them with white phosphorus.
  • La Résistance: The game makes it as clear as it can that these are ordinary citizens, not trained soldiers. The closest thing Boone's cell has to a traditional soldier is Connor, and he's more than a little unhinged.
    • Even the guns contribute; you're given only a few mags of ammo, and sometimes you end up picking up a gun with not even a full mag. Jacobs apparently doesn't know that certain weapons use interchangeable mags, so if his M4 is running low, and there's an M16 nearby, he cannot take the ammo from the latter for use in the former.
      • This makes it somewhat odd, since Jacobs is a former Marine pilot, and all Marines are trained to be riflemen, so Jacobs should be familiar enough to scavenge for ammo, but still can't. This is likely just a gameplay mechanic.
    • Boone himself used to be a Colorado state trooper.
  • Les Collaborateurs: Arnie, doesn't help the fact that the Koreans have no problems shooting him once he has outlived his usefulness.
  • Master of Unlocking: There are a few doors you can open yourself, but most doors, along with file cabinets, refrigerators, and other such barricades will forever hold you back until your NPC allies can move them out of the way.
  • Mercy Kill: One level has the Resistance shelling Korean troops with white phosphorus shells. You can kill them to put them out of their misery, or let the bastards cook Both choices give you an achievement.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Appeasement on the Greater Korean Republic, taking advantage of an economic depression by taking over the world, mass graves and execution squads, a charismatic Kim Jong-un wanting to reunite his people for a single goal, seeking revenge on their former enemy (Japan and United States) from the previous wars they fought against them, and the United Nations collapsing. The Greater Korea Republic are like the Nazis in the 21st century, except they're communists and probably don't exterminate people on the basis of race.
  • No Campaign for the Wicked
  • No Endor Holocaust: Based on the opening cinematic, the Koreans' EMP stops right at the Great Lakes and 49th parallel, sparing Canada its effects. Mexico isn't as lucky.
    • Actually, it looks like a fair bit of southern Ontario (ie. Toronto) gets hit as well, so Canada doesn't get away entirely unscathed either.
  • No Koreans in Japan: Heavily averted, with an Ironic Echo. And the fate of Japanese people probably wouldn't be pretty either judging how Imperial Japan had occupied Korea in the past.
  • No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: The singleplayer campaign is basically just a long linear progression from one non-interactive scripted event to another, in the style of the Call of Duty series.
    • There are collectables, like the newspapers that explain the backstory, and hidden weapons that are better than the typical guns found. However, you probably won't find most of 'em as your allies keep telling you to Continue Your Mission, Dammit!, causing you to miss most of these unless you deliberately look for them.
  • North Koreans With Nodongs: Rather, a unified Korea.
  • Not What I Signed on For: Though she does it anyway, Rianna isn't too fond of killing fellow Americans, even the CrazySurvivalists who earlier wanted to rape her and lynch Hopper.
  • Nuke'Em: Probably what the North Koreans did in order to irradiate the entire Mississippi river. Alternately, they may have set up some radioactive materials dump in or near Lake Itasca.
  • Oh Crap:

Hopper: Oh, shit! Misfire! MISFIRE!

  • One Bullet Clips
  • Plot Armor: In cutscenes, the protagonist survives many things that are effectively impossible to survive, solely because he is the protagonist. This gets lampshaded by Hopper near the end of the final level.
  • Police Brutality: Many examples by the Koreans in the game.
  • Product Placement: Apart from familiar stores, you can see advertisement billboards for the PWS Diablo, in addition that it is also one of the most common guns in the game. There is a promotional deal between Kaos and PWS.
  • Propaganda Machine: Numerous examples from the Greater Korean Republic.
  • The Plague: The 'Knoxville Cough', an apparent strain of the flu so named for its supposed origins in Tennessee, affecting much of the USA's population.
  • Real Is Brown: Massively averted. The game uses a remarkably vivid and colorful palette, especially considering its grim subject matter, and a majority of the missions take place outdoors in broad daylight. Indeed, while the textures are a development cycle or two behind other games released in the same time period, Homefront's attractive color palette and lack of "coffee filter" in front of the camera make the graphics look much better than they should.
  • Red Scare: Certainly in the eyes of many Americans. Then again, this game is made by the same guy who made Red Dawn.
    • "The only good Communist is a DEAD COMMUNIST!"
      • Amusingly, that's not an actor - it's a rather infamous interview from a tea party rally.
  • Red Shirt: Tons of them, the unnamed resistance fighters and US marines.
  • Regenerating Health: For some reason, not getting shot for a few moments causes the player to be fine again.
  • Retcon: In the early trailers, Kim Jong-un was portrayed very differently, since the real life Kim did not have an official picture yet. However, when Kim Jong-un was finally officially revealed in the media, his actor had to be replaced in the site's trailers, which was justified in any case.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Connor after seeing the mass graves, which isn't surprising.
  • Semper Fi: Supplementary materials state that Jacobs is a former Marine pilot, though the game itself doesn't mention it.
  • Sequel Hook: The game ends with the European Union thinking about helping out America, but the occupation still continues in a "The Battle is Won, The War Goes On"-type deal. A sequel has been confirmed by THQ despite closure of the game's developer.
  • Short-Lived Aerial Escape: Played straight Up to Eleven. every last helicopter you see, allied or not, will be blown out of the sky, with the sole exception of the player-controlled heli in the Escort Mission level.
  • Shout-Out: Artwork shows a "Wolverines" banner in a baseball field. Considering who this was written by, one can assume it's not the only such reference.
  • Shown Their Work: The game developer team actually consulted with an former CIA field agent with Korean ancestry to paint the backstory on how North Korea becomes a military superpower.
  • Silent Protagonist: Jacobs, the player character, never says a word and his face is never seen. The only background info given on him is that he's a former helicopter pilot, which is why the Resistance wants to recruit him.
  • Stock Scream: The Wilhelm scream shows up now and then, in varying speeds. Also referenced in one of the achievements which requires you to score at least 10 railing kills with the grenade launcher.
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: When the cell raids a Korean fuel dump so they can tag a jet fuel convoy to steal later. The team's van crashes into the middle of the depot blaring "Burning Love". Considering that Connor managed to get his hands on some White Phosphorous mortar rounds... you can see where this is headed.
  • Tie-in Novel: Homefront: Voice of Freedom chronicles the origin of the Voice of Freedom aka Ben Walker. A few characters from the game cameo in the novel.
  • The Quisling: A map of the States shows the location of several strongholds controlled by collaborators.
    • The guy in the labor camp, Arnie, betrays your squad to the Koreans out of concern for his daughter.
  • Token Enemy Minority: Hopper is Korean-American. He mentions that anyone who looked even slightly Asian had been getting lynched when he left Oakland, and he was "lucky" to only have his home burnt down.
    • Oddly, its a better example than most because Hopper is surprisingly understated about the horrific treatment he's received. The Resistance Fighters are pretty stunned about it when he actually does mention it.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future: set in 2027, but the world has been in recession since 2009, so technology has mostly stagnated during most of the interim.
  • The Unfought: Kim Jong-un
  • Voice of the Resistance: There is the "Voice of Freedom" network for starters.
  • War Is Hell: The war in the game, although necessary, is ugly, brutal, and inhumane.
  • We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill: The KPA propaganda radio and the speakers from their helicopters appears to be like this.
  • What Could Have Been: According to this article, the developer team were originally going to have the Chinese as the bad guys. However, due to America's Friendly Enemy relationship with China, American and Chinese economic dependency on each other, and fears of pissing off China's Culture Police, the team scrapped that idea and had North Koreans as the bad guys instead.
    • A a news site has noted, you'll sell more video games to the Chinese if you do not present them as genocidal invaders, while the North Koreans are unlikely to buy video games period.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Jeong, (as well as presumably his Dragon, Sergeant Moon) virtually the only named character in the KPA, is made out to be an enemy of some importance after forcing the protagonist out of his home. He is seen only twice, both times in cutscenes, and inexplicably vanishes without a trace after the second level, where you last see him.
    • Considering the note the game ends on (not at all finalizing), it's possible the devs intend for Jeong to show up again in later games. So this may end up being averted.
  • What Have I Done: Hopper after The mortar misfired and landed on the resistance position instead.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Rianna called out Connor for using the white phosporous mortar shells to attack the KPA position.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: There's an Easter Egg video of a San Francisco suicide bomber planning to attack the KPA because of the treatment they've given the Occupied America and its citizens.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters
  • 0% Approval Rating: The KRA's method to raise an army and invade hints they used forced labor camps and turned the occupied countries into massive slaughtering grounds.
  1. ↑ think the 1920s, but bigger and worse
  2. ↑ To elaborate, The exact same thing happened with the upcoming remake of Red Dawn. They were originally going to use China as the main villains, but due to extenuating circumstances (in Red Dawn's case, they didn't want to offend Chinese investors) so they changed the villains to North Korea at the last second. And the fact that Red Dawn and Homefront share the same writer doesn't help either.
This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.