Homefront franchise to be co-developed by THQ Montreal: 'Manhattan is an incredibly expensive place'

As heavily hinted at in comments made by Homefront devs Kaos Studios and publisher THQ eariler this year, it looks like the future of the franchise won't be created solely in The Big Apple. Senior VP of Core Studios Dave Davis spoke to the THQ Montreal/Kaos Studios collaboration during a studio head roundtable this afternoon at GDC. "Wherever the talent is, we will have our studios," Davis told us, though he admitted that "Manhattan is an incredibly expensive place." Yeah, we know all about it, Dave. He also added, "There isn't a [critical mass] talent pool -- many of the people we have there are imported to NYC."

That said, he doesn't see Kaos shutting its doors as its employees relocate to The Great White North. In fact, Kaos has already worked with the Montreal studio (in a relatively cursory sense) on the first game in the franchise. "When finishing Homefront, we had about 10-11 people who helped shipped the original Homefront. And that was talent that we got from Montreal that we couldn't get anywhere else," Davis said. He further assured us that "We're trying to do the best thing for the product and the best thing for the studio, and going forward there will definitely be collaboration." What's not clear is if collaboration means consolidation in this case.