Ex-Kaos Devs: John Milius Didn’t Write Homefront

Remember Homefront? Of course you do. It was the second (and final) game from the now-defunct New York City-based developer Kaos Studios. And it was pretty good, too.

But while Homefront sold exceptionally well and proved profitable, that didn’t stop publisher THQ from shuttering the studio behind the game before THQ itself started to fall apart.

The thing is, even over a year after the game’s release and the subsequent closure of Kaos Studios, fascinating stories continue to leak regarding Homefront’s development and the myriad problems the team ran into while creating the game. One such absolutely fascinating, must-read article comes by way of Gamasutra, which has blown the doors off Kaos Studios’ behind-the-scenes rumblings with a slew of incredibly interesting revelations.

It’s one revelation buried in three pages of text, however, that’s possibly the most interesting of all. And it has to do with Homefront’s purported writer, John Milius. You may know Milius best for being the writer behind cult favorites Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn, the latter of which is very Homefront-esque. But according to the ex-Kaos staff members that spoke to Gamasutra, Milius didn’t actually write Homefront like it was originally claimed.

“Although Red Dawn scribe John Milius is credited with writing the script,” the article says, “multiple staffers tell Gamasutra he ultimately wrote not a word of it, despite the game containing at least 20,000 lines of dialog. Most former employees credit Kaos writer C.J. Kershner with Homefront’s script.” The “high-level story ideas for the game” are credited to Danny Bilson, the man recently replaced as THQ’s president by Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin.

This is a fairly significant revelation considering a great deal of the attention paid to Homefront before it launched was due to John Milius having been promoted as the man behind the game’s story. We’ve reached out to THQ for official comment on Gamasutra’s claim regarding Milius and will update when we hear back. In the meantime, definitely read the entirety of Gamasutra’s article for an incredible behind-the-scenes look at the rise and fall of Kaos Studios.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com