Saber Interactive is resurrecting the long-dormant Stuntman series with Stuntman: Hollywood, which is currently in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. What’s more is that it’s being injected with real movies and TV shows for the first time thanks to a partnership with Universal Pictures.
Present in the trailer were segments based on Fast & Furious, Back to the Future, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, and 2008’s Death Race. This first glimpse of Stuntman: Hollywood reveals it will feature a range of cars from these TV shows and films, from Brian O’Conner’s rides from The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious, to the armoured Mustang driven by Jason Statham’s character in Death Race. The massive tanker truck from the latter also makes an appearance; here’s hoping we get to drive it. The enormous crash of The Dreadnought (which was filmed practically) is perhaps the most impressive and memorable shot in that film.
Not all the cars appear to be licensed (for instance, the Miami Vice vehicle is an obvious lookalike based on its distinct lack of the iconic strakes of Sonny Crockett’s white 1986 Ferrari Testarossa), but K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider and the Time Machine from Back to the Future are legitimate models and namechecked in the official announcement.
“The classic Stuntman game was so memorable for me, it’s always been a dream to recreate such a legend of gaming history and evolve it into something new,” said Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits in a statement alongside the announcement. “At Saber, we love working with classic IPs, and we’re excited to team up again with Universal to bring back a true adrenaline rush for fans.”
But what is Stuntman? Well, if you’re under 30 you could probably be forgiven for not having much of an idea.
The original Stuntman was released way back in 2002 on PlayStation 2, and was developed by Reflections Interactive (now Ubisoft Reflections) – a studio that, at this time, was still riding high on the success of Destruction Derby, Destruction Derby 2, Driver, and Driver 2. While Driver was never shy about its big-screen inspirations – and was always intended to make you feel like you’d been thrust behind the wheel of a classic, Hollywood car chase – Stuntman made this its entire premise. That is, it took Driver’s sublime handling model and injected it into a game that literally cast you as a professional stunt driver.
While Stuntman became a cult favourite action-driving game, it’s famously harder than a woodpecker’s lips and attracted a degree of criticism for the level of perfection required to nail all of the required stunts in a single take.
Stuntman did not feature any real films as part of its career mode, but it was very easy to interpret the movies it was paying homage to throughout. These included a Guy Ritchie-inspired London crime caper, a pair of off-brand Indiana Jones and James Bond films, and a clear riff on The Dukes of Hazzard called A Whoopin’ and a Hollerin’.
Outside of the regimented film shoot levels, Stuntman featured a construction mode where you could build and perform your own wild, freestyle stunts. Experimenting with the advanced destruction system and physics was a huge amount of fun.
A sequel would follow in 2007, but not from Reflections Interactive. The rights to the Stuntman brand had instead shifted to THQ, which enlisted the services of now-defunct Paradigm Entertainment to put it together. As a result, 2007’s Stuntman: Ignition had a significantly different feel to the original. Paradigm’s driving pedigree was not quite as robust as Reflections, although it did develop the 2001 SpyHunter reboot for PS2, as well N64 racers F-1 World Grand Prix and Beetle Adventure Racing (known as HSV Adventure Racing in Australia).
Stuntman: Ignition featured six more fake films to speed through, including shoots inspired by Dante’s Peak, The A-Team, Batman, and Bullitt, plus another Bond parody, and the satisfying return of A Whoopin’ and a Hollerin’ II.
Unfortunately, Stuntman: Ignition underperformed commercially and THQ announced it would not pursue any further instalments of the series.
For nearly 20 years, that was all she wrote for Stuntman – but now it’s back, courtesy of MudRunner and SnowRunner publisher Saber Interactive.
A release date for Stuntman: Hollywood has not been confirmed, but here’s hoping it feels good behind the wheel – as a racer requiring the precision of Stuntman will live and die on the strength of the handling model.
Here’s also hoping it’s not the last Reflections racer to receive a long-awaited comeback.
It has been 5,391 days since the release of Driver: San Francisco.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
