THQ already planning Homefront 2

Earlier this year, THQ revealed the next project from Kaos Studios, the military first-person shooter Homefront. Set in the near future, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC game's hook is that it is set in the midst of a foreign invasion of the United States. While Homefront's premise lost some of its novelty in the wake of the recently released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2--which includes segments where players fight Russian soldiers on American soil--THQ's core gaming group head Danny Bilson isn't worried about its ability to compete.

During a presentation at the FBR Capital Markets 2009 Fall Investor Conference today, Bilson was asked how he plans to position Homefront against competition like the next Call of Duty and Medal of Honor games. In response, Bilson pointed to the game's narrative talent, as well as its multiplayer pedigree.

Bilson noted that Homefront developer Kaos was born from the ashes of Trauma Studios, maker of the popular Desert Combat mod for the World War II shooter Battlefield 1942. The group's first project for THQ, Frontlines: Fuel of War, was not a tremendous success in critical or commercial terms. However, Bilson chalked it up as "an incomplete experiment under pressure to ship" and reasserted his faith in Kaos to "build the best online battlefield."

Single-player action is also a concern of THQ's. To that end, Bilson also touted the involvement of filmmaker John Milius, who wrote and directed Red Dawn, a fictional account of the Soviet Union invading the US.

Homefront's story won't all be contained in the game itself. An online promotional campaign will dole out bits of Homefront's backstory in the weeks leading up to the game's release, Bilson said, adding that the single-player campaign mode is only a small part of the overall story.

"This is about a guy moving some fuel," Bilson. "That's what the single-player is about, to restart some vehicles and retake the Golden Gate Bridge. It's the beginning of a story. We're going to tell this like a serial, with cliff-hangers. And then we intend to continue the story in [downloadable content], until we go to Homefront 2."

Bilson said the downloadable content for the game will include a mix of single-player and multiplayer action.

"This is one of our big bets, I'll be honest," Bilson told investors. "People say, 'Why are you going into this Call of Duty space?' And it's because I know we can compete. I know we can compete."