Homefront: The Revolution

Homefront: The Revolution
Developer: Deep Silver Dambuster Studio Publisher: Deep Silver Platform: Windows Released internationally: May 20, 2016 Released in US: May 17, 2016 This game has unused animations. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prerelease article

Homefront: The Revolution had a... rather turbulent development history. After the developer of the original game was shut down in 2011, THQ contacted Crytek UK to work on the sequel, only for THQ themselves to go under about two years later. The franchise rights were then sold to Crytek, who in turn sold them - as well as Crytek UK itself - to Deep Silver, who finally managed to release it in 2016.

The game is probably more famous nowadays for the game hidden inside it rather than the game itself.

To do: The game has a significant amount of cut and orphaned content. Unused music, unused dialogue and missions, and a lot of alternate takes. There's an entirely different version of Crawford taking Ethan through the train station, for example. Plus heaps of unused and alternate lines during the opening torture sequence. There's an Xbox 360 "FeatureTest" build that was leaked online.

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Prerelease Info

Unused Dialogue & Cutscenes Whatever happened to the good doctor?

Unused Video Unused CCTV and a... motion capture session?

Unused Music

These two funky little tracks, referred to as "music_loop_test_08_bars.ogg" and "music_loop_test_16_bars.ogg" respectively, are stored with the music used in menus.

Burnett Name Change

Sam Burnett is named "jack_burnett" in the game files. Presumably, his name was changed to reduce confusion with Jack Parrish.

Side Missions

Most side missions were removed and replaced with generic jobs.

• Moore originally gave Ethan jobs as she tortured some hapless soul for information. (Fully voiced.)
• A journalist named Alec gave Ethan jobs where he was tasked with photographing KPA war crimes. (This likely has some relation to the abandoned journalist's apartment in the final game. Animations are present, but the voice acting is not. Alec's character model is either missing or he was built from generic NPC parts. A part of the mission was shown within the 2014 demo shown to IGN on the Prerelease page.)
• There are traces of multiple side missions relating to smuggling.
• A mission where you gather City Hall blueprints from a KPA Defector in Ashgate was cut, called 'Plan B'.
• A sidequest where you gather morphine for Burnett. (Fully voiced and seemingly animated, albeit without audio cleanup.)

The Butterfly Killer

The Butterfly Killer mission was scrapped after the side missions were replaced with the job board. But a simplified version was kept until it was partially removed in the console ports. The only documentation online of the full simplified version is this video, posted by a former developer for Deep Silver. The ending part of the mission and some possibly related areas, such as a glitchy shipping crate on the docks, are still present in the game.

Other Missions

• A mission where you found a drug dealer and purchased morphine for Walker was removed. This is from an earlier version when it was a direct sequel to the original Homefront around 2013-2014.
• A mission where you went to find Burnett at his clinic while Parrish searched for duster override codes was removed. (Voice acting present.)
• An orphaned mission titled "Framed" involving a character named Scott, plus Dana was removed. Perhaps had something to do with Goliath's sabotage?
• Originally Walker taught the player how to use the camera. He tasked the player with photographing KPA sites. (Partial voice acting remains?)

Intro Sequence

The intro sequence seemingly went through drastic overhauls. There are traces of an early version where the player meets with Harvey and they pass through some checkpoints to the safehouse. There's some boosting over fences, and such.

In addition, the sequence where Walker calls Harvey's phone only appears as an FMV in the first DLC, but animations are present in-game. Attempting to open a locked gate repeatedly throughout the main game without the leveled-up keycard for the area will trigger the orphaned "Call Harvey" animation despite playing as Ethan.

Cut Gameplay Features

Hacking & Remote Controlling Drones

Concept art by Faye Kime

In the retail version, using hack tools will turn KPA drones against their allies. However, in the leaked 2013-2015 versions of the game, the player was supposed to be able to hack drones and control them remotely.

The smartphone folder contains a file named targetingmode.xml, with the line "TargetingMode Entity class drone_goliath".

The dialogue folder contains a subfolder named drone_hud featuring Vocaloid-sounding Korean messages that seem to match up with what one would expect from a remote control hacking interface. Interestingly, in the Gamescom 2015 Demo, one of the messages is used in the hacking interface for the Comms Relay Strike Point. This could indicate that these files were made for the direct sequel variant of the game by Crytek, but were repurposed by Deep Silver for their version before eventually being scrapped.

Threat

To do: Find the hacking chip props. There's one for each drone type, from memory. I assume the game had a device-specific hacking system that was replaced with magical hack tools. There might even be UI leftovers if the scripts can be decompiled. On the other hand, maybe the remote control never made it past the concept stage.

Gas Mask Filters

A file named maskcanister.xml exists under the "consumables" folder, implying the player was originally meant to be forced to replace the filters in the mask in a manner akin to the Metro series. There are also separate files for the gas mask and filters. "gas_mask_tp_cinematic.cgf" and "gasmask_filter.cgf".

Grappling Hook

There are multiple references to a grappling hook scattered throughout the game files. The file "forcefeedbackeffects.xml" contains "grapplingHookHit grapplingHookStartTravel grapplingHookMovement", plus "grapple_attachpoint" props. This is a scrapped element of the game when it was Homefront 2, intended to be a direct sequel to the original Homefront made by THQ. Footage of the grappling gun in use can be found on the Prerelease page.

Blueprints

There is unused dialogue where Cook tells the player they need blueprints to construct certain weapons, implying the player originally had to find blueprints before their weapons could be upgraded.

In addition, there are objects labeled "unlock_blueprint_attachments.cgf", and "unlock_blueprint_scopes.cgf".

Subway Fast Travel

The Subway, repeatedly referred to as HUB, appeared to play a bigger role at some point. There is an unused object called "fast_travel_map" located in the objects/props/gameplay/subway_hub folder. In the final game, fast travel is achieved using your mobile phone.

Unused Textures

Menus_startmenu_background01.png is an unused main menu background seen in leaked alpha footage of the game from 2012-14, when it was called "Homefront 2".

TimeSplitters 2

As mentioned earlier, the game features a playable TimeSplitters 2 arcade cabinet with the first two levels of the game, located in the Restricted Zone area. All of the assets from TimeSplitters 2, properly converted to work with CryEngine and everything, are stored in the files. Even otherwise-unnecessary assets like GameCube controller icons. The .pak files used in the original release are stored in the files as well, despite not being necessary.

By opening up "Homefront2_release.exe" using a hex editor, you can see that all of the text for TimeSplitters 2 is stored in it starting at offset #21BC606, again including things such as mentions of PlayStation 2 and Xbox Memory Cards. Also viewable with a hex editor is what appears to be a series of compiler strings, including this fairly important one at offset #21e75b8:

d:\work\dsdb\Code\TS2\ts2redux\cryengine\ce_file.cpp

Accessing the Rest of the Game

To do: Matt mentioned that rudimentary online multiplayer support was programmed in, if you were to access the Arcade machine in Co-Op mode. There's also three extra cheats that don't seem to do anything. Clarify whether the PS4 and Xbox One codes use the D-Pad or Left Stick.

Before being mentioned by programmer Matt Phillips in 2021, the existence of a button code to access the rest of the game's content had been known for years but it was later discovered that there were in fact multiple codes.

Code	PS4	Xbox One (+ PC Gamepad)	PC Keyboard & Mouse
Unlock Story Mode	L2+UP, L2+UP, Down, L2+Right, R2+Left, R2+●, L2+▲, L2+▲, R2+■, L2+X	LT+UP, LT+UP, Down, LT+Right, RT+Left, RT+B, LT+Y, LT+Y, RT+X, LT+A	Right Click+Q, Right Click+Q, E, Right Click+2, Left Click+1, Left Click+G, Right Click+R, Right Click+R, Left Click+T, Right Click+X
Unlock Arcade	L2+R2+Left, L2+R2+Down, L2+R2+Left, L2+R2+●, R2+Left, L2+R2+Left, L2+R2+Down, L2+R2+▲, R2+■, L2+X	LT+RT+Left, LT+RT+Down, LT+RT+Left, LT+RT+B, RT+Left, LT+RT+Left, LT+RT+Down, LT+RT+Y, RT+X, LT+A	Left Click+Right Click+1, Left Click+Right Click+E, Left Click+Right Click+1, Left Click+Right Click+G, Left Click+1, Left Click+Right Click+1, Left Click+Right Click+E, Left Click+Right Click+R, Left Click+T, Right Click+X
Unlock Challenge Modes	R2+●, L2+R2+Left, L2+R2+●, L2+R2+Down, L2+Right, L2+Up, L2+▲, L2+R2+X, R2+■, L2+X	RT+B, LT+RT+Left, LT+RT+B, LT+RT+Down, LT+Right, LT+Up, LT+Y, LT+RT+A, RT+X, LT+A	Left Click+G, Left Click+Right Click+1, Left Click+Right Click+G, Left Click+Right Click+E, Right Click+2, Right Click+Q, Right Click+R, Left Click+Right Click+X, Left Click+T, Right Click+X
Invinciblity	Right, L2+R2+Down, L2+R2+Left, L2+Right	Right, LT+RT+Down, LT+RT+Left, LT+Right	2, Left Click+Right Click+E, Left Click+Right Click+1, Right Click+2

An example of the broken UI scaling.

While the vast majority of the full game's content is accessible through this method, it is noticeably unfinished - several UI elements are scaled incorrectly, and a few maps (such as the Neotokyo level in Single-Player) will crash the game on the PC and Xbox One versions though not on PS4. The PC version has a patch that can fix crashes on Neotokyo.

Curiously, the misc texture folder for the TimeSplitters 2 demo contains a few files relating to Future Perfect and Second Sight.

Screenshot4.rgb through Screenshotc.rgb

A set of nine different screenshots taken of a TimeSplitters: Future Perfect trailer is located in a series of "Screenshot(number/letter).rgb" files.

ss_title_512.rgb

This piece of artwork from Second Sight is stored multiple times in the files as "ss_title_512.rgb", "ss_title.rgb", "ss_title_crop.rgb", and "ss_title_bak.rgb",