No ‘gimmicks’ for Homefront campaign

The single-player Homefront campaign will be a memorable experience that doesn’t rely on gimmicks, the game’s associate level designer Rob Donovan has claimed.

Posting on the Homefront blog, Donovon explained how the team went about designing and balancing the experience.

“We want people to remember Homefront when they’re done playing it. We want friends to be able to talk about sections of the game and reminisce about the experience. In the combat sections of the game, this often comes down to interesting and fresh scenarios that a player has never seen before. Having a shootout near the broken hulk of a downed plane, for instance, is something that we hope you remember.

“One thing we wanted to avoid, though, was relying on gimmicks,” he added. “At one point in development we had an extended battle with a helicopter that was shooting its mounted guns at your position inside a guard house. After taking it to a high level of polish, we realised it just wasn’t working. It felt too much like a clichéd ‘boss battle.’ It didn’t fit with the tone of the game we were creating and it made future helicopter encounters feel less threatening. Once you’ve single-handedly taken down a chopper, the next one doesn’t feel as powerful.”

Donovon explained that this was an important lesson to learn: destroying a helicopter should be fun and it should matter.

“As a member of the Resistance trying to engage a well-funded military, it’s important that enemy vehicles and armour feel appropriately scary,” he added. “When a machine gun on a Humvee starts firing at your position, you need to keep your head down and fight for a better position, not engage it head-on. This informed a lot of our level design, as we discovered that escaping or outrunning strong opposition was as exciting as fighting it.”

Homefront will be released March 18 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.