There’s a Drone Racing League with online video games, and now there’s a video game that comes with an actual drone.
Publisher Deep Silver, a subsidiary of Koch Media, will offer gamers the Homefront: The Revolution Goliath Edition game for $160 on May 17. That’s in addition to the traditional $60 versions for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.
The Goliath Edition comes packed with a radio-controlled scale replica drone of the Goliath depicted in the game, complete with working lights and six-wheel suspension. Players will have to deal with the virtual drone as they navigate the city of Philadelphia in 2029, which in the story is occupied by the Korean People’s Army (KPA). It’s one of the weapons in the KPA’s counter-insurgency arsenal, which players are fighting against as they seek to reclaim the city and fight for America.
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That $160 price tag also includes a collector’s Steel Book featuring art from the game, a collection of in-game weapons and gadgets, and a 12-month season pass to all single-player expansions.
This isn’t the first time gamers have been offered a remote-controlled vehicle as an incentive to spend more on a game. Back in 2011, Activision and Treyarch shipped a $190 Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition version of the shooter. It included a remote-controlled XD-VS video surveillance vehicle based on the one soldiers used in the game.
In 2013, Ubisoft released a $150 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist Paladin Multi-Mission Aircraft Edition game, which included a custom hobby-grade, remote-controlled airplane modeled after the in-game Paladin aircraft that Sam Fisher uses as his mobile hub.
Dambuster Studios has developed this sequel to the 2011 title created by THQ and developer Kaos Studios. When THQ went bankrupt in January 2013, Crytek picked up the franchise rights to the game. Deep Silver acquired the Homefront franchise from Crytek in July 2014.
The first-person shooter franchise stands out from the crowd by offering a storyline in which American rebels are fighting a foreign army on U.S. Soil. The original game presciently depicted the death of North Korean president Kim Jong-il (although in the game’s timeline it occurred in 2013 instead of 2011) and the subsequent rise of his son, Kim Jong-un. Within the game’s narrative, after successfully testing nuclear weapons, he unites South and North Korea into the Korean People’s Army. In 2025, Korea successfully attacks and occupies the United States by detonating a high-altitude nuclear device taking out military vehicles and then launching an amphibious attack on the West Coast.
Thus, things have only gotten worse in Homefront: The Revolution as Korea moved its occupation past the Mississippi River and taken control of East Coast cities such as Philadelphia.
According to Hasit Zala, game director at Dambuster Studios, surveillance drones, armored patrols, and police violence have become everyday life in Philadelphia, the once proud birthplace of American independence. However, in the ruined outskirts of the city, resistance is getting stronger.
“We’re planning for a dedicated team to work on additional single-player content for at least a year after release,” Zala says. “We have some exciting ideas that we hope to develop further post launch, but the overall goal is to add some surprising new experiences to the world of Homefront that complement our 30-hour single player campaign. ”