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#thq In THQ's Homefront the United States of 2027 faces an invasion by North Korea. For the Japanese release North Korea has been replaced with "A Certain Country to the North." Damn you, Canada! More »

The North Korean of the U.S. has been delayed by seven days. THQ and Kaos Studios' Homefront will come to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on March 15 in North America after a brief delay. More »

During THQ's investor call today, president and CEO Brian Farrell repositioned Homefront's launch from March 8 to March 15. A THQ rep confirmed the delay to Joystiq, saying, "We moved our Homefront launch date by one week to March 15th."

No specific reason was given for the move, but the launches of Pokemon Black & White and Dragon Age 2 on March 8 go a long way in explaining it. The rest of THQ's statement seems to reflect our supposition. "We think we have a great opportunity to dominate retail on this date." Tell that to Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus.

Interested in playing upcoming "America Invaded!" shooter Homefront on the PC? Here are its specs. More »

#homefront This is John Milius. Writer, director and NRA member, Milius is bringing his vision to video gaming next month with Homefront. More »

Wolverines!

Though the Kaos Studios team is currently in New York toiling away on Homefront, some are worried it'll be the last game they make in the city, according to a Develop report. A Kaos source told the publication that some staffers have voiced concerns that they'll be uprooted after the project is finished and moved to THQ's new, tax-friendly 400-person-capacity studio in Montreal.

Kaos boss David Votypka didn't dismiss the employee concerns when Develop asked for his take on them. He admitted "the goal has always been to find a way to utilize [the Montreal facility] in future Kaos projects" as "New York is not the most inexpensive location to develop games."

But exactly how that move would shake out -- whether it would result in two homes for Kaos, or the studio closing and being enveloped by THQ Montreal -- is unclear. Votypka said that while various scenarios have been submitted to THQ, he doesn't expect a final decision "for some time yet."

We imagine much of the eventual decision rests on how well Homefront performs when it launches on March 8.

Shooting through the multiplayer modes.

THQ's Danny Bilson has said that Homefront's emphasis is on multiplayer. Having played both the solo and multiplayer components of Homefront, it's clear why: the multiplayer is a much more compelling product, thrusting an otherwise unremarkable effort into something genuinely noteworthy. Kaos Studios' vehicular take on large-scale modern warfare feels frenetic and well-balanced.

It seems Kaos is making a concerned effort to make the online experience of Homefront rewarding both for skilled players and novices. The Battle Points system, or the online in-game currency, is one way of leveling the battlefield. The system not only rewards kills, but support actions, and allows all players to respond to dynamically changing skirmishes. A newly revealed feature called "Battle Commander" is yet another way Kaos plans on making the online fun for everyone.

Battle Commander "makes large scale warfare personal [and] rewards players for having vendettas," senior designer Brian Holinka told us. It's Homefront's take on the killstreak: perks that empower players that rake in consecutive kills. But there's an important twist: with each "perk" that you receive, you become an increasingly vulnerable target, with the AI assigning personal assassination missions to the opposing team in order to bring you down.

Following the wildly negative reaction to Modern Warfare 2's lack of dedicated servers on PC, one of the marketing bullet points for THQ's FPS Homefront has been its promise of such dedicated servers -- not only on PC, but on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, as well. But how important are they?

"You have to think about your constraints when you're making a game," Homefront senior designer Brian Holinka, of developer Kaos Studios, explained to us at a recent press event for the game. "If we host a server on a console, all of a sudden, that console is both server and it's playing the game. That really lowers everything: player count, the number of vehicles, everything. Dedicated servers allow us to offload all that work and basically all the client has to worry about is running the game."

Through dedicated servers, Homefront will support a chaotic 16-versus-16 online mode, where every player can summon a vehicle at will. "It means everything is bigger -- there's more players, more vehicles, more targets, more airstrikes," Holinka hyped.

"It really helps us offload a lot of work," he reiterated about the servers, "and now our scope is a lot bigger." But can you really call a 32-player match "a lot," when a game like MAG has littered the virtual battlefield with 256 players? We asked Holinka why Kaos wasn't using the dedicated servers to expand the number of players per match even further, and he reminded us that "we had more in Frontlines," the studio's previous game. Apparently, the team tested out larger battles for Homefront, but "it just didn't work," Holinka said. "We just found it wasn't fun. It just plays better at 32."

"If you played a level with 50 or 60 people in there," the developer found, "every time you turn around, you'd get shot."

Accusations of an exhaustive "crunch" at Homefront developer Kaos have been met head-on by parent company THQ and the studio's general manager David Votypka. Develop is covering all sides of the issue, including Votypka's acknowledgement that the studio has been crunching for the last six months, with 10 hour days. He notes, "If this seems unique or abhorrent, I would have to suggest that any assessment regarding a 10 hour work day would need to consider a much larger segment of the American workforce."

The anonymous employee also wrote up their own piece for Develop expressing fears about "THQ publicly [saying] things that glorify crunch time." The source feels that management shouldn't have put the team on a schedule that created this extended, "seven day a week crunch mode."

"Crunch," loosely defined as the overtime-intensive period before a game ships, is an industry standard. The issue certainly gets sensitive whenever brought up, and it always seems like the specter of EA Spouse is watching the conversation.

All downloadable content for upcoming shooter Homefront will be a timed exclusive for, you guessed it, the Xbox 360. More »

#pullquote THQ executive Danny Bilson's tweet on Tuesday about a visit to the developer of Homefront, crunching to deliver the game by its March 8 release. Seen via Develop, where a robust debate about the comment's appropriateness is in the comments. More »

Homefront is following in Call of Duty's footsteps in more ways than one. As Activision has done for its FPS franchise, THQ is partnering up with Microsoft to offer Xbox Live members first access to all future downloadable content for Homefront, Xbox's Major Nelson announced today at a THQ press event for the game. In addition, the Xbox 360 version of the game will include an exclusive map at launch, dubbed "Suburb."

Additional details about the map and partnership will be revealed on "Inside Xbox" next week.

Homefront is following in Call of Duty's footsteps in more ways than one. As Activision has done for its FPS franchise, THQ is partnering up with Microsoft to offer Xbox Live members first access to all future downloadable content for Homefront, Major Nelson announced today at a press event for the game. In addition, the Xbox 360 version of the game will include an exclusive map at launch, dubbed "Suburbs."

Additional details about the map and partnership will be revealed on "Inside Xbox" next week.

It's not even out, but already THQ is talking DLC

#homefront The North Korean bad guys in the upcoming video game Homefront were originally going to be Chinese, but the people making the game changed their mind for two reasons. More »

You know that old, silly THQ logo? The one where it looks like the letters are going high speed? That is now, officially, old and busted. As seen above, the publisher unveiled its new logo (aka "the new hotness") this morning, with company head Brian Farrell noting, "Our new logo epitomizes the change, innovation and creative growth that are the cornerstones of the new THQ." Farrell is of course speaking to the past few years of major changes at THQ, kicked off with the hiring of core games VP Danny Bilson in early 2008 and followed by several successful business choices in the subsequent years -- everything from achieving cost-cutting goals early on to brokering deals with top talent.

The new logo will start making retail product appearances this February and "will be rolled out over the next few months" in other venues. Goodbye speedy THQ logo, hello crazy future-font THQ logo!

#clips Not due out until March on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Homefront can be seen here playing on the world's largest 3D television. More »

A skeptical interview about Kaos Studios' emotional first person shooter.

#thq The occupied-America shooter Homefront will require THQ's Online Pass - a one use code that comes free in retail copies of the game - to access the game's online multiplayer. But accommodations will be made for renters or used-copy purchasers. More »

The upcoming Homefront will indeed use THQ's "Online Pass" functionality, similar to the system used by EA for its sports games and co-opted by THQ for its UFC title last year. Players who buy the game new will get a code in the box to play online with, and anyone who buys the game with a used code will have to shell out an extra $10 for the full online experience. Not paying the money won't lock them out completely, but it will limit functionality to only level 5, rather than the full version's 75 levels of progression.

The single-player side of the game won't be affected by the online pass at all. It sounds like an interesting option -- certain players who don't care about progression might pass on paying the extra fee completely. We'll have to see how THQ's gamble goes over when the game arrives in March.

Homefront takes place in 2027. In this developer diary's section about branding, it's noted the North Koreans are using a "big box store" as a supply depot. At 1:53 in the vid you can tell it's a Circuit City -- an American retailer that went defunct in 2009. The North Koreans aren't only taking over the country in Homefront, but the past. What a twist!

Learn to become a freedom fighter with this diary from the minds behind Homefront.

The Great Leader has a message for the occupied United States.

The latest trailer for THQ and Kaos' Homefront, which emerged during last weekend's VGAs, is a testament to why one should never assume. Oh, the United States assumed that everything was going to be totes cool with their buddies up in North Korea? Well, um ... no. That's not exactly correct.

There's a lot of talk about "resistance" in the latest trailer for Homefront, which previews a climactic battle you'll engage in during the game's campaign. Like, a lot of talk -- you might think you were watching a game adaptation of Les Miserables, if it weren't for all the anti-tank rockets.

#homefront First-person shooter is a fabricated account of what would happen if North Korean leader Kim Jung-il died and his son took over. The game's latest trailer is hardly fiction. More »

The latest Homefront developer diary is all about the multiplayer, with Kaos Studios emphasizing the game's sense of "large scale warfare." The video details the Battle Points system, which allows players to purchase vehicles and weapons during matches. Also: Futuristic robo-drones.

See how the multiplayer of Homefront aims to redefine the experience of online warfare in first-person shooters!