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'Homefront' Is a Terrifying Dystopia Where Apple Is a North Korean Company

In Homefront: The Revolution, the North Korean occupation of the United States starts with smartphones we buy willingly.
Image: Deep Silver.

The

Apple vs FBI case

could have been the first chapter of a great dystopian novel. The FBI's request that Apple create special software to allow the FBI to unlock the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook made us consider a frightening future where a giant tech company acted as an extension of government authority.

Say what you will about the current state of privacy and security in the United States, at least here the legal system is still built in a way that allowed Apple publicly resist the request. But what if Apple was a company based in a less democratic society?

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Homefront: The Revolution, a new first person shooter being published by Deep Silver, imagines exactly that kind of dystopia.

It's a reboot of Homefront, a 2011 first person shooter where players take part in a resistance against a North Korean occupation of the United States. It was basically the video game version of Red Dawn only with North Korean aggressors instead of Chinese and Russians, and, sadly, no Patrick Swayze. In 2011, Homefront imagined a future where America is invaded after being weakened by a deadly bird flu and financial collapse. In 2016, Homefront: The Revolution's fiction expresses new fears from a new era by imagining an invasion that begins with slick smartphones Americans buy willingly.

Developer Dambuster Studios has constructed an exhaustive alternate history that would allow for a North Korean occupation of the United States, but the only part of it you really need to know about—and the only part that makes it momentarily plausible—is APeX.

In the game, the company is founded in North Korea by a Steve Jobs-like character named Joe Tae-se. APeX is also much like Apple in that it makes computers, smartphones, and other consumer electronics, but eventually its business evolves into the development of advanced military hardware as well. Obviously, the other important difference is that, unlike in the United States, where Apple can be at odds with the FBI, in North Korea APeX cooperates with the government fully.

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By 2028, bogged down in several conflicts in the Middle East and $15 trillion in debt to North Korea alone, the United States is on the verge of collapse. North Korea comes to collect on its debt, but rather than a violent invasion like we see in Red Dawn, APeX simply flips the switch on the defense systems and communication devices it sold the United Stated, waltzes in, and assumes authority under the pretence of a humanitarian relief mission.

Image: Deep Silver.

Of course, the North Korean occupation of the United States is not as kind to the occupied as first promised, and so the game begins when players join a growing resistance.

Cheesy as it is, Red Dawn is one of my favorite movies, and the resistance scenario is an inherently good setup for a video game because it puts a brave few versus many. I love any fiction in which America is invaded or is otherwise on the decline because it allows us to imagine ourselves as idealistic underdogs, which is way more romantic than being a global empire. I'm such a sucker for the formula, I even tolerated the original Homefront, which received mostly average to mixed reviews.

However, the problem with this setup since the '90s is that it was still using Cold War-era villains. The 2012 remake of Red Dawn, the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series, and even my favorite game about an occupied America ever, Freedom Fighters, are all invaded by another country, usually a communist one.

Homefront: The Revolution comes out on May 17. It looks cool, but it has to overcome both a lackluster debut and a development team troubled by financial troubles. For now, it at least gets points for realizing that Communism alone isn't that scary in 2016, but giant tech companies and governments working together, that's a fear we can relate to today.