{"id":12145,"date":"2026-07-23T18:19:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=12145"},"modified":"2026-07-24T06:34:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T03:04:50","slug":"former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/07\/23\/former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Assassin&#8217;s Creed, Watch Dogs Director Likens Large-Scale Game Development to Working With &#8216;Flaming Barrels Falling Down From a Construction Site,&#8217; Months After Parting Ways With Ubisoft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell development veteran Clint Hocking has described the experience of leading a large team within Ubisoft as like working while &#8220;flaming barrels [are] falling down from a construction site,&#8221; akin to a scene from the arcade game Donkey Kong.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hocking made the comment as part of a lengthy discussion about how his role changed as development team sizes grew, leading him to feel less effective while leading Ubisoft&#8217;s multi-studio effort on Watch Dogs Legion. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hocking and Ubisoft parted ways abruptly earlier this year amid a reshuffle at the top of the publisher&#8217;s prized Assassin&#8217;s Creed brand, despite being in the middle of leading development on Assassin&#8217;s Creed Hexe. The franchise&#8217;s next blockbuster, Hexe is understood to still be on target to arrive in 2027.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;On [Splinter Cell] Chaos Theory, I would just walk over to the desk of the person who was making a thing, and sit down with them and talk to them about what they&#8217;re doing,&#8221; Hocking recalled, speaking via the FRVR podcast.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;We could have a conversation,&#8221; he continued, suggesting a scenario where he was able to offer granular input such as the placement of a specific light source to better guide player movement.<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Watch Dogs: Legion Official Screenshots<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3027214138 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\"><\/span><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;But on a huge game with 1,000 people, you go into a meeting to review some piece of content \u2014 some quest, say, or some location \u2014 and there&#8217;s 30 people in the meeting,&#8221; Hocking continued. &#8220;Directors and producers and project managers, and very often even the level designer who built it isn&#8217;t even in the meeting.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;And it&#8217;s like, &#8216;where&#8217;s the person who worked on this?&#8217; &#8216;Ah, they&#8217;re working on the thing they need to do for their next meeting. But don&#8217;t worry we&#8217;ll take notes and put it in Jira for them.&#8217; So there&#8217;s people there writing down what you say, making tasks of it. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;Then you finish the review, you say, &#8216;OK, when are we going to see the iterations and the improvements we talked about?&#8217; And they&#8217;re like, &#8216;Well&#8230; so it&#8217;s going to be six weeks before we see an iteration on this because the person who needs to do the iteration is working on this [other thing].&#8217; Then, by the time you get back there six weeks later, maybe the whole context is different. It very often feels like&#8230; you know those flaming barrels that Donkey Kong throws down at you? Very often game development feels like this stream of burning barrels falling down from a construction site.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hocking initially joined Ubisoft to work on the legendary 2002 stealth action adventure Tom Clancy&#8217;s Splinter Cell, which he contributed to as a designer and scriptwriter. Hocking then served as creative director on its follow-up, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, before holding the same role on Far Cry 2.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">During a period away from Ubisoft, Hocking served years at LucasArts, Valve, and Amazon. Hocking then returned to Ubisoft to serve once again as a creative director, this time on Watch Dogs: Legion, which launched in 2020 to a mixed response. Following that, Hocking moved over to Assassin&#8217;s Creed, and had been leading work on Hexe out of the company&#8217;s Montreal studio. Legion remains Hocking&#8217;s only shipped title since Far Cry 2 back in 2008.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hocking&#8217;s role leading Assassin&#8217;s Creed Hexe has now been taken up by Jean Guesdon, the Assassin&#8217;s Creed franchise&#8217;s Head of Content, who is seen as a steady and experience hand with a lengthy track record working on numerous titles in the series. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Photo by ROBYN BECK\/AFP via Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Tom Phillips is IGN&#8217;s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky <\/em>@tomphillipseg.bsky.social<\/p>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/former-assassins-creed-watch-dogs-director-likens-large-scale-game-development-to-working-with-flaming-barrels-falling-down-from-a-construction-site-months-after-parting-ways-with-ubisoft.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-12145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12147,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145\/revisions\/12147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}