Parent's Guide: Homefront: The Revolution - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

What is Homefront: The Revolution

Homefront: The Revolution is a first person shooter set in a dystopian, near-future America, which has found itself under a brutal occupation by the Korean People's Army, also known as the KPA. Set in Philadelphia, the citizens are downtrodden, and the KPA rule with an iron fist - but all hope is not yet lost. A revolution is building, and it's up to you join the resistance, fight back against the KPA, and take back what's rightfully yours.

How do you play Homefront: The Revolution?

An "open-world" shooter, Homefront: The Revolution is a pretty free-form game. While there is a story to complete, and main missions you can work your way through, at least half of the game here is in liberating the various sections of the city in whichever order you so choose.

The city itself is divided up into districts. In Red Zones, stealth is key, as these are areas the KPA have heavy control of, and you'll be shot on sight if seen. Sneaking through the back alleys and staying out of sight until you can find what you're after is the order of the day here. Yellow Zones, meanwhile, are civilian populated - and while you'll still need to stay out of sight so as to avoid being identified, it's a lot easier to blend in here with the crowd. As you go around the city, you'll need to start to take back control of districts by reclaiming buildings and areas, whether you're clearing a building out of enemies or simply switching on a generator. Each time you take over an area, the difficulty of that zone gets a little easier, as there are more computer controlled resistance members around, and fewer KPA. Speaking of the the resistance, it's also possible to 'recruit' up to four computer controlled resistance members to follow you around and help you fight, which always comes in handy for those tricky moments.

When you get the chance to fight back, you can make use of your fully customisable weapons (you can turn a pistol into a sub-machine gun if you have the right parts) - or go the more fiery route, and even send in explosive remote control cars!

Homefront also has an online multiplayer side, separate to the main story, where up to four players can take on small missions of around 10-20 minutes each, which are heavily focused on teamwork. If you head online, you'll need an internet connection as well as an online subscription (PS+ on PS4, or Xbox Live on Xbox One) to participate.

How easy is Homefront: The Revolution to pick up and play?

In terms of accessibility, Homefront: The Revolution is a game aimed at experienced players. While there are tutorials on hand to help you get to grips with the controls and what to do, it's also a game where it's easy to get lost. You'll need to listen out for spoken instructions, as the game moves at a fast pace, and doesn't always show you where you're meant to be going next on your map - and, as it's an open world game, a lot of the time the choice is up to you anyway. Important areas you need to head to are often marked out with the colour blue, whether it's from a light, a poster, or spray paint, and so you'll always need to keep an eye out for anything that's blue - something that's easier said than done when you're being chased by the KPA. With a large reliance on stealth, you'll need to be fully aware of your surroundings (and your enemies' positions) at all times - something which newer players may find challenging. Without the ability to manually save your game, you also rely on the game's infrequent checkpoints, meaning that dying can cost you a fair amount of progress. As a first person game, Homefront: The Revolution also makes use of a dual analogue control scheme (left stick moves you around, right stick controls where you look).

Additional Notes

• As the game asks you to keep an eye out for anything that's blue, as a way of showing you secret hideouts, stashes or safe houses, there's a colour blindness option in the menu, which tweaks the colours to help players who are colour blind.
• Homefront: The Revolution also has micro-transactions, where players can spend a small amount of money to unlock new weapons or equipment immediately, without having to find it, or unlock it through gameplay. These are entirely optional, but are always worth being aware of.

When the KPA took control, they did so with the intent of scaring the populace into behaving - and that means there's a lot of violence in Homefront, from the very beginning. The game opens with a scene where you and two of your team mates are being held hostage and tied to chairs - one of them is shot in the head while the other is beaten to death with a hammer… Because the game has a first-person view, you see everything happen up close and you cannot look away.

In normal gameplay, you'll face off against the enemy using a variety of weaponry, including shotguns, assault rifles, pistols and grenades. When an enemy gets hit, blood will spurt out, and they will collapse - but the blood effect in combat isn't as gory as on some other games, and seems fairly mild comparatively. Bodies stay on the ground for a while before disappearing, and the blood left behind looks more like red paint than blood. Similarly, when your player is injured or near death, the screen fills up red and begins to pulse, signifying that you need to be healed.

However, other scenes include a lot more gore, and there are plenty of moments designed to make players feel uncomfortable. One section of the game involves you interacting with a doctor and visiting him in a clinic by surrounded by injured people, which is uncomfortable and messy to say the least. Another sees you come across a public execution - a mother is heard telling her son not to look at her and the father who are backed against a wall, as KPA soldiers stand in front of them. The mother screams at the child to turn away, as she and her husband are shot dead in front of their son, who screams and cries while he runs up to his dead parents.

While there isn't too much in the way of swearing in Homefront in general, there is one particular character that swears like there's no tomorrow. The most common ones used are; "f*ck", "s*it", "motherf*cker", "p*ss", "b*tch", "d*mn", "d*ck", and "b*stard". The game also features a prostitute, who sometimes wonders the streets soliciting ("You wanna go some place?"), although you can't accept or do anything with her, and there's also the occasional reference to doing "weed"

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Playstation 4