The release of THQ and Kaos Studios’ Homefront earlier this year was met with a less than stellar critical response as gamers bemoaned the extraordinarily short and underwhelming singleplayer campaign, but paused to heap at least a little praise on the game’s multiplayer.

Despite encouraging sales numbers (especially for a brand new intellectual property competing in the cutthroat military shooter genre), Kaos Studios was shut down at THQ’s behest, leaving the future of the Homefront franchise in doubt.

While THQ assured fans (and critics) that a sequel to Homefront would appear, with development duties falling to the publisher’s Montreal studio (which actively worked on the original Homefront), news today is that mega-developer Crytek (Far Cry, Crysis) will work on the next Homefront game.

Rumours doing the rounds point to Crytek UK handling development of Homefront 2, which would make sense as THQ probably intends to strengthen the series’ multiplayer offerings to compete with Call of Duty and Battlefield and so would look to a developer with suitable multiplayer development experience. As Crytek UK is essentially the team comprising the defunct Free Radical (Time Splitters) which was tasked with the creation of Crysis 2 multiplayer, this shoe fits nicely.

The Homefront sequel is said to be due for release during THQ’s fiscal year 2014 (anytime during April 2013 and March 2014). Here’s the official word from THQ’s executive vice president of core games, Danny Bilson:

“Homefront’s unique setting and storyline captivated gamers the world over. With Crytek’s industry leading technology and legendary experience in the FPS genre, we’re supremely confident that the next Homefront will deliver that AAA-quality experience that players demand.”

Crytek studio head Cevat Yerli adding:

“We see Homefront as a really strong universe that has a lot of potential and that has been expertly created and marketed by THQ.”

I just got a lot more excited about Homefront 2, everybody.

Here’s El33tonline’s review of the original Homefront to see why the world’s reaction was so lukewarm.

For comparison sake, here’s El33tonline’s review of Crysis 2 (Crytek’s last game) to see why you should get excited about Homefront 2, too.