The Stuntman Series Returns After Almost 20 Years, With Fast & Furious, Back to the Future, and More

Saber Interactive is resurrecting the long-dormant Stuntman bid with Stuntman: Hollywood, which is presently successful improvement for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. What’s much is that it’s being injected with existent movies and TV shows for the archetypal clip acknowledgment to a concern with Universal Pictures.

Present successful the trailer were segments based connected Fast & Furious, Back to the Future, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, and 2008’s Death Race. This archetypal glimpse of Stuntman: Hollywood reveals it volition diagnostic a scope 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 quality successful Death Race. The monolithic tanker motortruck from the second besides makes an appearance; here’s hoping we get to thrust it. The tremendous clang of The Dreadnought (which was filmed practically) is possibly the astir awesome and memorable changeable successful that film.

Not each the cars look to beryllium licensed (for instance, the Miami Vice conveyance is an evident lookalike based connected its chiseled deficiency of the iconic strakes of Sonny Crockett’s achromatic 1986 Ferrari Testarossa), but K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider and the Time Machine from Back to the Future are morganatic models and namechecked successful the authoritative announcement.

“The classical Stuntman crippled was truthful memorable for me, it’s ever been a imagination to recreate specified a fable of gaming past and germinate it into thing new,” said Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits successful a connection alongside the announcement. “At Saber, we emotion moving with classical IPs, and we’re excited to squad up again with Universal to bring backmost a existent adrenaline unreserved for fans.”

But what is Stuntman? Well, if you’re nether 30 you could astir apt beryllium forgiven for not having overmuch of an idea.

The archetypal Stuntman was released mode backmost successful 2002 connected PlayStation 2, and was developed by Reflections Interactive (now Ubisoft Reflections) – a workplace that, astatine this time, was inactive riding precocious connected the occurrence of Destruction Derby, Destruction Derby 2, Driver, and Driver 2. While Driver was ne'er shy astir its big-screen inspirations – and was ever intended to marque you consciousness similar you’d been thrust down the instrumentality of a classic, Hollywood car pursuit – Stuntman made this its full premise. That is, it took Driver’s sublime handling exemplary and injected it into a crippled that virtually formed you arsenic a nonrecreational stunt driver.

While Stuntman became a cult favourite action-driving game, it’s famously harder than a woodpecker’s lips and attracted a grade of disapproval for the level of perfection required to nail each of the required stunts successful a azygous take.

Stuntman did not diagnostic immoderate existent films arsenic portion of its vocation mode, but it was precise casual to construe the movies it was paying homage to throughout. These included a Guy Ritchie-inspired London transgression caper, a brace of off-brand Indiana Jones and James Bond films, and a wide riff connected The Dukes of Hazzard called A Whoopin’ and a Hollerin’.

Outside of the regimented movie sprout levels, Stuntman featured a operation mode wherever you could physique and execute your ain wild, freestyle stunts. Experimenting with the precocious demolition strategy and physics was a immense magnitude of fun.

A sequel would travel successful 2007, but not from Reflections Interactive. The rights to the Stuntman marque had alternatively shifted to THQ, which enlisted the services of now-defunct Paradigm Entertainment to enactment it together. As a result, 2007’s Stuntman: Ignition had a importantly antithetic consciousness to the original. Paradigm’s driving pedigree was not rather arsenic robust arsenic Reflections, though it did make the 2001 SpyHunter reboot for PS2, arsenic good N64 racers F-1 World Grand Prix and Beetle Adventure Racing (known arsenic HSV Adventure Racing successful Australia).

Stuntman: Ignition featured six much fake films to velocity through, including shoots inspired by Dante’s Peak, The A-Team, Batman, and Bullitt, positive different Bond parody, and the satisfying instrumentality of A Whoopin’ and a Hollerin’ II.

Unfortunately, Stuntman: Ignition underperformed commercially and THQ announced it would not prosecute immoderate further instalments of the series.

For astir 20 years, that was each she wrote for Stuntman – but present it’s back, courtesy of MudRunner and SnowRunner steadfast Saber Interactive.

A merchandise day for Stuntman: Hollywood has not been confirmed, but here’s hoping it feels bully down the instrumentality – arsenic a racer requiring the precision of Stuntman volition unrecorded and dice connected the spot of the handling model.

Here’s besides hoping it’s not the past Reflections racer to person a long-awaited comeback.

It has been 5,391 days since the merchandise of Driver: San Francisco.

Luke is simply a Senior Editor connected the IGN reviews team. You tin way him down connected Bluesky @mrlukereilly to inquire him things astir stuff.