It wasn't wise of THQ to take on CoD with Homefront, says Pitchford

Gearbox's Randy Pitchford has said it probably wasn't wise for THQ to take on Call of Duty with Homefront considering it was a new IP.

Speaking with Gamasutra, Pitchford said that while the game's scenario was interesting, it didn't take enough risks with gameplay, adding that if a studio were to take on Call of Duty, it would "really have to go for it."

"You really have to spend a lot. You have to not only out brute-force the market leader, but out-clever them," he said. "The game has to be better, the marketing and production better have to be...everything has to be bigger and better.

"I tend to be careful about talking about other people's business. "Right off the bat, I'm suspicious of that approach, right out of the gate. That might not be the best strategy. The [game's] what-if scenario is kind of interesting but it doesn't take a lot of risks from a gameplay point of view.

"Somehow the decision was made that 'We are going to build this game and hope it becomes an IP' [but with Crytek as developer]. That suggests that the people at THQ that were making the decision, at the time, that Homefront was worth betting on again, but not with the same developer, which is interesting."

Pitchford said while he didn't know "what they think the problems were," with the first game, THQ "haven't given up," but went so far as to say he wouldn't have put Crytek on the sequel - at least not until he "heard about" the firm's plans for it as Crytek is more than capable of creating its very own IP.

Homefront 2 is slated for release in in THQ’s FY14, which so expect it to release sometime between April 2013 and March 2014.