Ever since Homefront: The Revolution launched, there has been quite a bit of talk about how the game has looked and performed. Unfortunately for the developers, the game was a critical failure. However the game had potential and for some reason developer Dambusters have continued to work on the game since then.

Since the game launched, the developers have been trying to get the game into a state where players can potentially enjoy it. To that end, Dambusters is about to release a new update and this one is apparently going to be rather substantial.

On the game’s official website, the company announced the next patch is going to include support for the PS4 Pro. The company says that those who are playing Homefront: The Revolution on the PS4 Pro are going to see a resolution and performance boost. There will even be some HDR enhancements.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments section below.

The launch of Homefront: The Revolution was, to put it bluntly, a mess. Yes, the game had a long development cycle, switching publishers multiple times, but let’s call a spade a spade here: it was a mediocre game, made even worse by the plethora of bugs and glitches that plagued it.

That last bit, at least, is something that post launch updates can fix, and developers Dambusters are doing just that. They’ve released Update 1.4 for Homefront: The Revolution on PC, with an Xbox One and PS4 release coming next week- and the update fixes a lot of the issues with the game. Have a look:

Some of the things that will make it into this patch for ALL platforms (unless stated) will include:

Save Stalls – We have optimized the number of checkpoint save locations throughout the single player campaign. This means that the short ‘pauses’ that the player encounters are reduced and the game will now inform you that it is saving.

There will also be further optimizations in an upcoming patch.

Missing Map Icons – Players who were missing icons after updating to the v1.03 patch should now see their progress restored. You should now be able to continue your game, however there may be some slight inconsistencies with the hearts & minds stats.

Crash Fixes – We have fixed many crash related issues across all platforms

Multicore CPU’s (PC) – PC players should now see better performance from their CPU. We fixed an issue that meant multicore CPU’s were not being fully utilized.

The team have all worked tremendously hard and are already working on further patches that will contain even more reported issues and fixes.

Some of these will include:

• SLI Fixes
• Fix for Hearts & Minds progress in the Ashgate District not progressing correctly
• Fix for non-english characters used in login names

These will join many other fixes which we will release when that patch goes live.

Resistance Mode Content

This weekend, we are dropping 2 new outfits for your Resistance Mode character. “Back from the Dead” and “Crash Landing” that will be available from the ‘Veteran Gear Crate’. Alongside the outfits, 2 new Boosters and 3 new Pharmas will make there way into the Armory.

Boosters:
– Cash +20%
– XP + 20%

Pharmas
– Pussycats – Silent Movement
– Cuttlefish – Less chance of being targeted
– Coags (increased bleed out time)

What this patch does not fix is the Hearts and Minds mission bugs present in the games- those should be addressed in an additional patch that will be out next week.

Homefront: The Revolution is available now on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

To begin with, let us take a look at the PC version first. The graphical settings include a fair number of settings such as Anti-aliasing (which varies from FXAA to SMAA Medium (2x). We found the AA options to be quite odd given that how SMAA 2x is only limited to Medium and how there is a lack of any MSAA setting. Further options include Game effects, Object, Particles, Post-processing effects, Shading quality, water and shadow quality, anisotropic filtering, field of view, depth of field and lens flare. All in all, there is a reasonable amount of settings which may give an indication that the game is highly scale-able. As far as requirements go, the developer recommends an Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX-8320 and GeForce GTX 760 or Radeon HD 7870 along with 8GB of memory. Again, just like the graphical settings, the recommended requirements sound pretty decent and most rigs will be able to run the game just fine, right? Well, not really. We tested the game on a couple of different configurations to see how well the game scales according to hardware.

First, we tested the game on AMD FX 8350 and Radeon R290x 4GB along with 8GB of memory, which is above the game’s recommended requirements. Unfortunately, playing the game with every setting notched up resulted into a terrible performance. The game was literally unplayable at this setting. When we switched the game’s settings down to High, the game was somewhat playable but at times our PC was struggling to reach a consistent 30 frames per second. Our second and third set ups included a Radeon R390 and GTX 970, with 8GB of memory and Intel i7 5960x, which is once again above and beyond the recommended settings. The results were once again pretty disappointing with sub-30fps performance on both at Very High settings. Although, we did witnessed long stretches of OKAY frame rates, performance was largely disappointing. However, switching to High settings with the same configuration resulted into a fairly decent 60 fps performance with drops to lower 50s.

In short, our impressions of the PC version are disappointing at this stage and this only made us even more skeptical about the console versions. So how do the console versions perform given their limited CPU capability and GPU prowess? Well, it must be noted that CryEngine is largely a CPU bound engine so if you are expecting a locked 30fps experience on both consoles, then prepare yourself for disappointment. Homefront The Revolution just like Assassin’s Creed Unity has those moments where it runs at 30fps but we are largely looking at sub-20fps performance. As we mentioned before, Homefront The Revolution is an ambitious game. It utilizes a dynamic weather system, features a fairly big open world, has complex enemy AI, dynamic lighting and a ton of other physics effects but for a game that has been in development for such a long time, there is no excuse for such performance parameters. The PS4 and Xbox One are absolutely identical in terms of core assets, largely similar performance (Xbox One has better performance due to slightly better CPU but that difference is not something players will notice) and if there is anything that differentiates them it is the image quality. The PS4 version runs at a full 1080p presentation whereas the Xbox One stays at 900p.

There is also very little to choose from between the console and PC versions. Other than the potential high frame rates that the PC build can offer,  the PC version has better shadow quality, screen space reflections and better textures in some places. Console players won’t be missing out much as the PS4 and Xbox One versions are running at the High setting equivalent on the PC build.

I hate to label Homefront The Revolution as a disaster on consoles and gaming PCs. It’s technically a very ambitious game which is eventually marred by a host of optimization issues. In many ways, Homefront The Revolution is an example of the importance of performance optimization in video games. Your game may have the best graphics in the world but if it is not doing justice to underlying hardware then it should have stayed in development instead of rushing it out of the door.

Homefront: The Revolution has been a bit of a mess on all counts- which is frankly still far beyond the ‘total and irredeemable mess’ status that was expected of it, given its long, messy, and protracted development cycle. However, the mess becomes a bit more inexcusable when it starts to interfere with players’ enjoyment, inasmuch as it exists, of the game- and update 1.03 released for the game yesterday apparently does just that.

This update removes icons from the in-game map, making it impossible to see missions, side-quests, NPCs and collectibles. Stats linked to the player’s progress and the game’s Hearts & Minds feature are apparently also affected. To Dambuster’s credit, they acknowledged the issue on Twitter this morning, saying that they are “aware of an issue surrounding map icons on PS4 affecting some players after the latest update. The team are investigating currently.”

The developer also left a message on its forum asking affected players to upload their PS4 profile and save game to file-sharing site Dropbox- they say that they hope that by examining these saves, they will be able to better figure out what exactly went wrong.

“We are working on getting to the bottom of what is happening and having as many save games as possible will help us get there quicker,” wrote community manager Craig Turner. “We appreciate your help and patience.”

Homefront: The Revolution is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Homefront: The Revolution is now finally out, and while the final game seems to be a bit of a swing and a miss, at least it managed to actually release after that extremely protracted development cycle that it had. That said, the troubled development is extremely evident if you play the game- its core content itself seems to be a bit lacking in terms of quality- however, equally importantly, perhaps, the game’s performance also leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in terms of the framerate.

In a new post on the Homefront The Revolution Official Forums, community manager Craig Turner has confirmed that performance issues will be fixed in future patches, noting that the performance of the game is definitely not where the team wants it to be.

“Homefront: The Revolution is now finally available worldwide, and we hope you are enjoying your first steps in Occupied Philadelphia as a member of the Resistance. It has been a long road for us, and we’re only getting started.

“But we’re also aware that performance – particularly frame rate – is not currently where we want it to be, and we are working on additional patches to help address these issues and more. Patch notes per platform will be available on the community forums and on Steam when they go live.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long for the problems to be fixed. Homefront: The Revolution is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.