I have to say, I didn’t think we would ever see the day where the Stuntman series came back, and I certainly didn’t think it would be by Saber Interactive. A Stuntman revival was so out of my mind that I was legitimately confused at what this game could be when I saw the trailer live at Summer Game Fest. Was that freaking Kitt from Knight Rider!? Is that the DeLorean from Back to the Future!? Then the Stuntman: Hollywood logo went up and I got so happy. I absolutely adored these games back in the day, and to see it coming back and teaming up with Universal for licensing is an awesome idea.

If you aren’t familiar with the Stuntman games, well, they are actually quite simple in nature. You’re a stuntman on a film set that is going to complete all the vehicle stunts. As you drive, the director will give you instructions on what to do at the upcoming stunt, and you must do it as accurately as possible to earn points. For example, when you start you may have to hit a speed gate, which requires you to be at a certain speed to earn the proper score when you go through it. The director will then say: “at the next turn, do a nice wide drift and then bash through the police barricade.” You will be scored based on how accurately you complete each stunt. If you don’t drift long enough, then you won’t score as high. If you don’t bash through the barricade right in the middle, you will lose points. There are a bunch of different stunts to do like close calls, riding on two wheels, jumps, and much more. The gameplay is just gas, break, and hand break for drifting. It’s simple in concept, but very hard to master and complete perfect scores.

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

Stuntman: Hollywood stays true to the series and doesn’t try to muck it up with anything else it doesn’t need. Instead, they decided just to go bigger and offer more blockbuster scenarios based off movies we know and love. I had a handful of stunt scenes to complete during the demo and I’m hooked already. While you can absolutely blow through these levels in just a handful of minutes if you only looking for a passing score, where you spend you time is mastering each stunt and transition. There are some really difficult ones in here also that I know perfectionists are going to enjoy. 

For the most part the scenes in the demo were your standard Stuntman styled levels, but I did get to play a Back to the Future level in the DeLorean. These won’t be 1:1 recreations of scenes from the movies themselves, but they will be inspired by the films and set in locations that look like the movies. For example, driving through the city and passing the courthouse clocktower while you’re weaving through cars on two wheels. Until you finally get to the straight away where you have to hit a speed gate at, you guessed it, 88mph. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me you built a time machine out of a DeLorean?”

“It’s like taking nose candy off a baby.”

The next big one didn’t feature a famous car, but it was set inside a disaster movie called Earthquake from 1974. This level was extremely fun with all the chaos and destruction going on. Cars slamming into each other, freeway bridges breaking in half to jump over, close calls as big rigs trucks are falling sideways on you. It felt like you were really driving in a crazy, over-the-top disaster movie. Outside of these two movie references, the rest of the levels were standard ones, but that’s not a bad thing. The gameplay loop and the urge to beat your previous scores is strong in the previous Stuntman games and I’m glad to see it’s the same for the new one.

I asked Tim Lohrenz if all the modes from the previous titles will make a return in Stuntman: Hollywood, such as the stunt construction mode. He wasn’t able to confirm nor deny, but he did say that the goal is to bring back all the fan favorite modes. There was one thing, however, that did make me scratch my head: this isn’t going to launch on Nintendo Switch 2. This I find odd since it seems like a perfect game to have on the go. Bite sized levels that can be done in just a few minutes (if you don’t care to perfect them), and if it’s running on the Xbox Series S, surely it can run on the Switch 2. Hell, Saber has Turok: Origins launching on Switch 2, but not this? Anyway, not that it deters my excitement for the title!

While I’m extremely eager to get my hands on Stuntman: Hollywood there is no release date or year quite yet, but it will be launching on PC, Xbox Seres X|S, and PlayStation 5… and hopefully Switch 2 at some point.

*Pictures provided by the publisher