Far Cry 2 dev joins new LucasArts project

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 9 August, 2010

But what is it?

One of the brains behind the Far Cry and Splinter Cell series has joined LucasArts to work on an unannounced game.

Ex-Ubisoft Montreal creative director Clint Hocking left the Canadian publisher earlier this year.

Overnight Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II developer LucasArts confirmed Hocking has joined its ranks.

"We are pleased to announce that Clint Hocking has joined LucasArts as creative director on an unannounced project," a LucasArts rep told GameSpot.

If Hocking isn't working on the Kinect-exclusive Star Wars game shown at E3 2010 in June and due out in 2011, what is he working on?

As we scratch our heads, let's watch the cracking The Force Unleashed II trailer and reminisce over 2008's excellent open world shooter Far Cry 2.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • M4RV #1 2 years ago

    Endless respawn guaranteed. You heard it here first.

  • bad09 #2 2 years ago

    Republic Commando 2 I reckon, so that along with Battlefront 3 and a new X-wing next year right Lucasarts. RIGHT!!!

  • AphoticCosmos #3 2 years ago

    PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD BE IMPERIAL COMMANDO.

    I mean come on, it's criminal not to provide a Temuera Morrison-packed sequel of awesomeness to such an amazing game.

  • Seehuusen #4 2 years ago

    2008's excellent open world shooter far cry 2 ?

    meh that game sucked...too much travelling time, rather than blowing stuff up and shooting pixels.

    Didnt deserve to be called Far Cry 2, cause it had nothing to do with Far Cry at all, just a sail's trick...just like max payne 3...you'll see.

  • chasejamie #5 2 years ago

    We'll all see! Mwa ha ha ha...

  • Shinetop #6 2 years ago

    Bah, another shooter. Go for an RPG or something, LucasArts. Expand a bit.

  • FogHeart #7 2 years ago

    Drive landspeeder for a bit.

    Start getting rammed and shot at by a speeder bike.

    Landspeeder slows due to damage. Stop landspeeder. Get out.

    Speeder bike stops behind you. Stormtrooper gets off.

    Shoot stormtrooper. Get on his speeder bike.

    Drive speeder bike for a bit....
    Edited by FogHeart at 09/08/10 @ 15:10

  • sneetch #8 2 years ago

    @FogHeart

    God that sounds eerily familiar. :)

    Edit: you forgot to mention the fun associated with space-malaria.
    Edited by sneetch at 09/08/10 @ 15:13

  • JensonJet #9 2 years ago

    I've always dreamed of a Star Wars game based on the adventures of Han Solo. A mix of RPG and shooter. Allowing the gamer to choose first or third person. The character's much loved and infinitely more interesting than most in that universe. And who wouldn't enjoy taking control of the Millennium Falcon, visiting strange worlds, getting into sticky situations, smuggling for some unscrupulous aliens, avoiding the Empire and... well I can dream. As it's never happened so far, I guess it's never likely to. Shame, because I think it has potential to be an absolute blast.

    I hope this developer guy joining LucasArts wasn't the man responsible for the poor controls of Far Cry 2.

  • linksdad #10 2 years ago

    Far Cry 2 was great. Slightly too much driving about (as in most open world games including GTAIV)

    it had one of the most atmospheric renditions of Africa, or anywhere for that matter. Criminally overlooked in my opinion.

  • Ron_Justice #11 2 years ago

    Battlefront 3.

    Please.

  • Shinetop #12 2 years ago

    A new Star Wars RPG would be heaven. None of that old republic shit either, set something in the times between the old trilogies. Jedi hunting, Han Solo's smuggling antics, some crime syndicate stuff with Jabba... I can't wait.

  • FogHeart #13 2 years ago

    Luke Skywalker:-

    Works hard for his foster parents who won't let him follow his chosen career path. Picks up second hand goods with dodgy history, which gets said foster parents killed. Old man makes him sell his car to pay for the services of criminals and promptly dies in a fight witha war buddy. Ends up with insurgents and killing thousands of civil servants with one torpedo. Criminal attributed with saving his life.


    Almost freezes to death. Criminal saves his life again. Receives snog of his life, ends up it's from his sister. Is ordered to attend boot camp in a mudpit where a tiny drill instructor constantly tells him he's no good and too young and that he should let his friends die. Tries to help, gets mutilated by his own father, the people he tried to save end up saving him.

    Finishes boot camp, rescues sister and criminal, then finds out about his relationship to her and erection he had since seeing her in bikini swiftly drops. Buries himself in work, only to find that his father and father's boss want to talk to him about a job opportunity, the catch being that it's his dad's job and he has to kill him to get it. Mutilates his father. Decides not to kill him, but his father dies anyway. Spends the rest of his days as a monk.

    Han Solo:-

    Takes on dodgy cab fare from farm hick. Reluctantly springs rich hot-looking high level enemy combatant from off-planet prison camp. Collects fare plus bonus. Pisses off. Lets the insurgents do all the heavy lifting and dying in big push, returns at the last second to shoot one government employee in the back and takes a large chunk of the credit for the successful operation.

    Sponges off insurgents while fixing dodgy motor. Runs off with rich hot girl. Teases and mocks her, makes her work on his motor, she falls for his bad boy criminal charm anyway. Enjoys rich buddy's hospitality then government give him a long lasting sedative. Just before that hot girl declares love, he doesn't reciprocate and is all the cooler for it.

    Wakes up near home. Rich hot girl and farm hick whisk him away. He goes to a forest, makes friends with local wildlife, saves lives of hundreds of insurgents with simple disguise. Spends rest of his days shagging rich hot girl.

  • Shinetop #14 2 years ago

    You know what would be awesome? Being part of the stormtrooper unit that gets sent to recover the droids with the message for Obi Wan, and having to kill the Beru's in the homestead.

  • peteb #15 2 years ago

    A decent sequel to Jedi Knight, please!

  • beastmaster #16 2 years ago

    Dark Forces game. Perhaps.

  • levitate #17 2 years ago

    A Monkey Island FPS. You heard it here first.

  • Dylbot #18 2 years ago

    Throwing my hat into the "SHFLSHGLFGHL BATTLEFRONT 3" ring.

  • intrepidbeaver #19 2 years ago

    If this does not involve the words X-wing, Tie Fighter or Darf Forces in the title I will be most annoyed (as usual when it comes to Lucasarts games). Seriously, what was the last good game by Lucasarts on the PC?

  • Shinetop #20 2 years ago

    Seriously, what was the last good game by Lucasarts on the PC?

    Monkey Island 2 LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition.

  • makeamazing #21 2 years ago

    About time there was another Dark Forces to be honest.

  • Soton4084 #22 2 years ago

    @Fogheart

    Good comment! That was exactly what ruined Far Cry 2 for me and made it virtually unplayable! I just got incredibly fed up of it all in the end.

  • gnrlstuart #23 2 years ago

    jedi knight/red dead redemtion/fallout style game? twould be awesome set in naboo or tattooine.

  • Haloboy #24 2 years ago

    Far Cry 2 was so annoyingly underrated. I played the game for something like 7 months solid and still never did every mission or found every diamond stash. When a game that fun with that much scope and unashamed beauty gets slagged off repeatedly it tends to make you question why you like it so much. But then I came to the swift stark realisation that it didn't matter what others thought and I grew to love it even more.

    Far Cry 2 haters. Far 2 much Crying, not enough enjoying what was on offer.

  • Ashcroft #25 2 years ago

    Far Cry 2 could be a lot of fun, but it had the stupidest AI. You couldn't even call it AI, they just programmed everyone to always want to kill you.

  • JensonJet #26 2 years ago

    Haloboy,
    As it happens I enjoyed Far Cry 2 for as long as I could stand it. For me it suffered the worst of game problems... absolutely unbearable controls. The acceleration when turning was set to high. Lowering the turning speed to get the acceleration right meant turning was too low. Set turning correctly and the acceleration stepped in too quickly and had you spinning around too fast.

    Why the developers couldn't just copy the turning controls from Halo, Modern Warfare, or any Unreal based game is beyond me. Or better still do what Riddick and The Darkness allowed where you had total control and adjustability of the turning speed, acceleration of turning and where the acceleration started when moving the thumbstick.

    Some developers really need to use their brains a little. Games that have obscure or difficult controls make playing the game less enjoyable. The same is true if gamers aren't allowed to customise controls to suit how they want to play the game. Far Cry 2, for it's unbearable controls, alone, deserved to fail. Same for any other game who's developer get such a vital area of gaming wrong. It's no coincidence the most popular shooters also have the smoothest and best controls.

  • TheTingler #27 2 years ago

    @Shinetop: Huh? The project's not even been announced, so how do you know it's a shooter? It could be Yoda Stories 2 for all we know!

  • SYS64738 #28 2 years ago

    @Haloboy

    "Far Cry 2 was so annoyingly overrated." - Here, fixed that for ya.

    Although I usually avoid referring to Metacritic, have a look at the review scores, and then read the reader comments. And no it's not just a bunch of foul mouthed american kids commenting there. I wish I had read those before I bought the game (on launch day - no reviews were available before by the way - go figure), and inevitably got stung by a full price PC title you can't trade in, no matter how broken the game is.

    There were so many essential things wrong the with the game I don't even know when to start (and the controls, as mentioned by someone else, were the least of its problems). This was the first game where I started to question the ethics of the gaming press, i.e. whether they were bought by the publisher. How someone can rave about the game in such a positive tone is beyond me - unless it's due to justifying one's purchasing decision.

  • Shinetop #29 2 years ago

    @TheTingler:

    Want to bet?

  • RedSparrows #30 2 years ago

    I absolutely loved Far Cry 2. What flaws it had were outweighed by the colossal atmosphere of the game - CoD et al pale into insignificance besides that achievement. Yes, checkpoints got annoying (except you just...avoided them), and malaria could be too (until you learned when and why it'd hit you....), but overall, I adored it.

    Weirdly, its flaws and design quirks worked for the atmosphere rather than against it. It turned me into a spaced-out zombie, devoid of compassion and care, hungrily pillaging the savannah and jungle, cutting and burning, drenched in rain water and the thick, choking evil that filled the world.

    tra la la, etc.

    Also, you must be seriously pernickety. The controls quickly assumed the level of instinct within minutes of playing. I didn't notice anything broken about them at all.
    Edited by RedSparrows at 10/08/10 @ 12:08

  • FogHeart #31 2 years ago

    Okay, gonna comment on Far Cry 2.

    Beautiful game. Driving over savannah into the sunset, god rays flickering through the branches of trees. Setting shacks on fire, seeing it drift across the grassland, fantastic. Hunting down diamonds, creeping up on perps in assassination missions, listening to chilling pragmatism of The Jackal on his tapes, it's all gravy.

    Go to pick up a mission from someone. "Heyhere'swhatyouhavetodoIamtalkingsofastyouneedsubtitlesbutitdoesn'tmatterjustlookatyourmapandthat'syourtarget."

    Drive there. Go through checkpoints, clean up enemies you have cleaned up before. Respawning as a way of filling up the game's length because the game designers couldn't think of anything else. Also experience problems driving as shown above.

    Mission is always kill this person, or blow up this thing. Lack of variety in missions somewhat compensated by fun of the combat itself. Can use shoddy but powerful weapons occasionally found in safe houses, but they're just to whet your appetite - need to buy the real thing to enjoy it.

    More could have been possible. Sandbox games need you to have fun when not on mission. This game has 30 seconds of hang gliding, and that's all. Even the basic fun of driving through jungles severely hampered by stopswapstart of the other cars interference. And no concrete reward for taking down a checkpoint made them no more than hindrance.

    The sad thing is, these issues could have been resolved with one meeting and a week's work. It's like the game climbed a mountain, had to jump across a crevice to reach the summit called 'greatness', and instead stepped right into the crack - still high up, but broken and bent instead of at the top and triumphant.

  • SYS64738 #32 2 years ago

    What angered me most pre-release was the premise of a realistic setting (you being caught up in civil war), with realistic fire behaviour, the malaria idea was explained in a way that made it sound fun.

    What we got was

    - 2 factions not fighting each other but YOU and YOU ONLY
    - fire that burns (nicely I admit) grass and the odd tree (but not all of them) and doesn't damage, say, wooden shacks at all
    - we all know how the malaria mechanic worked out. A chore basically.
    - gunplay that means your gun jams after a while which would be fine but that doesn't seem to apply to the enemy, and it takes a full clip taking down a guy wearing a tank top and some shorts. Right...
    - you CAN avoid checkpoints but only if you're prepared to go through great lengths via massive detours, not made easier by the not so open world map - there were more corridors via mountain ranges that are unclimbable (why?) than you'd want.

    But I realise it was my own fault to buy into the marketing machine and learnt my lesson from it.

  • RedSparrows #33 2 years ago

    Most checkpoints can easily be avoided - outside of the central area of both regions, the zones were very open. Yes, you'll take some fire and maybe have to fix up your vehicle. But that didn't really get to me, because I had too much fun exploring and soaking it all up. It just worked for me. I can see why it wouldn't for others.

    I enjoyed it far more than any number of other shooters that get infinitely more praise....

  • SYS64738 #34 2 years ago

    No shooter is perfect but FC2 just had too many things that irritated me, to the extent that I simply did not enjoy playing the game. Having completed Crysis & Warhead just before I started FC2 certainly didn't help, but even the original Far Cry (despite the later monster enemies) I'd rate a lot higher than FC2.

    The lighting effects in FC2 were lovely though.